Shimmer

Shimmer has been occupying my thoughts for a little while now.. she is already in masters jumping, and will soon be in masters agility with only one pass left in excellent agility. Her progression has been a little slow, in agility, but in fairness she gets trialled quite infrequently. We have now reached a bit of a problem and it is as follows: Shimmer does not have the skills (or all of them, anyway), that will mean she is able to consistently qualify in the masters classes. There are many skills that dogs need to go clear on these, generally much harder courses. I am very aware of this, but I am also very limited with the amount of training I can do with this dog. Overdo it, and she pulls up lame. Not acceptable. What to do.. I dislike running a dog on a course I am not happy she has the skills to do successfully.. but to retire her already? She is only 3, 4 in September. Trial her NFC in the lower classes? I guess I could, although that doesn't hold any real appeal to me..however I would be doing it for her, not me. Decisions.. for the moment I guess I will continue to run her, but will be realistic with our qualification success. She will most likely not be coming to the nationals next year. Mind you, Ink is also looking uncertain at this stage. She somehow has managed to injure herself AGAIN. I noticed she was not wanting to sit or lie down, and although she was not lame, she was very sore on deep massage. This was a few days ago now, and she is still sore. She seems to have a very weak body.. again no trauma that I am aware of. Maybe I need another dog... (I think it is lucky that Mike doesn't read this blog!)

Anyway, here is Shim's structure pic. The stack isn't perfect, but it is pretty close, thanks to Simone's skills!
What you can see from this:

Moderate to straight upper arm angle. This leads to a more upright way of working, but it can mean turns are harder. It also can mean less likelihood of bar knocking (check, and check!)
Moderate to steep shoulder. Needs more layback. Can lead to short stride as less reach in front.
Short and fairly steep pelvis. Can lead to lack of power and drive from the rear (think we have that covered with the hip dysplasia anyway!)
Stifle and hocks look reasonable. Not over-angulated, and hocks and not trailing.
Nice short back.