News..mostly bad

Its been a while since I have updated.. basically cause its been too depressing to do so! Terra was out last year with a mystery ailment, causing neuro type signs on her RH (intermittent foot dragging) and despite EXTENSIVE workup, she is still very much not right. She is not lame anymore, but she seems to be high intensity exercise intolerant (eg agility). She seems struggle to get enough air and compensates by going to rest, and panting a lot. She is panting nearly all the time at the moment. So she is going for yet MORE workup, this time at Murdoch, to look at her upper respiratory tract and lungs. She has already had a CT of her spine, 2 different specialist ortho consults, a neuro consult, acupuncture and trigger point therapy. Leave no stone unturned! But it looks like she is probably going to be retired now, short of a miracle.

Shim is enjoying her agility, albeit on a limited level due to her hips. She had a nice win at the Western Classic in Novice Agility, and came 3rd in Excellent Jumping (with a big slice on her pad that I found later, still hasnt healed 2 weeks later, bad Mother!)The Masters and Apprentices Team also won the agility teams, and came third in jumping. She is still my favourite dog to train due to her overwhelming joy at doing *anything* with me. Doesn't matter what it is, Shim wants to do it, and at 100 miles an hour! We spend a lot of time doing conditioning exercises to try and keep her hips as muscled as possible. And she spends a lot of time scratching. Horrible allergies, horrible hips, lovely attitude, lovely dog. Love her to pieces.

Ink.. well Ink is getting there. Slowly. She is very very soft and gets worried easily. She isn't going to be in the ring anytime soon but she does enjoy her training, especially at home, and when she gets excited she bounces vertically, straight up in the air (at about shoulder height!) Apparently this is a Queani trait. She is a very sweet dog, if fairly strange. She takes refuge in her crate quite often, especially at times of 'transition' (eg about to go for a walk, just finished training etc), as she finds these times stressful. You can see her go into her crate, regroup, and then later come out. And she still gets offended VERY easily. But she is very sweet. She sleeps on the bed between us every night..

Disappointingly, there will be no nationals for me this year. I don't really have any dogs ready with Terra running like half the dog she used to be, Shimmer only half trained and Ink not ready for the ring. Went from considering taking 3 dogs, to none! These things happen, I guess, although it is disappointing, especially with the nationals only every second year now. But it sounds like we are having a big ADAA event here in WA in August, and Ink might be ready for that, and Shim will be. And next year Karen and I are considering taking the 4 dogs over for the Grand Prix. So quiet year on the competition front for me, but a very busy year on other fronts with lots of extra work, and planning a wedding!

Here is the vid of Shim's runs at the classics. Such a good girl :)