Friday Set Up and Warm Up

Travis looks sweet, but in the mornings he is a jerk. He so looks forward to his morning meals and begins to whine early in anticipation. The alarm clock especially triggers the behavior. I think its almost to the point that he cannot physically stop himself...... its simply an annoying whistle with every breath he takes and I hate it. On work days, I get up at 4:30 AM and I simply do not have time to exercise him or wait for him to be quiet. Squirt bottles make no difference. It is just one of those things I have resolved to not solve. Now for the record, I will not give him food while he is crying... he does have to be quiet for at least minute. I can usually accomplish this at home by having him do sit or stand stays on the fireplace.... it sounds weird, but it makes him concentrate. Anyways, in CA with the 3 hour time change he was late in his schedule, but still very early for CA time ....... 3:45 AM. He'd start to fidget, wake me up, and then start to cry because I'm wake. I think I waited until about 5 AM to finally feed him.

I forgot to tell you yesterday, but I was so stoked to find chicken backs at a Ralph's Grocery store. Obviously, I cannot fly with raw food, so I figured I'd have to buy wings or leg quarters. However, it was great to find cheap raw food that Travis is used to eating everyday.

Anyways, once outside I find out that it is raining in Southern California where it doesn't rain. I, of course, didn't bring an umbrella or rain coat. The rain continued for the entire day. The big joke is that the big TV news story was "STORMWATCH". Can you believe that? A day of rain in Southern California calls for a storm watch. Too funny! :-)

Anna picked us up and took us to breakfast around 9 AM. We had planned to visit Lake Forest where I used to live, but due to the rain we decided that it did not sound fun. There was actually a regular onformation dog show (not yet the invitational) going on, so we decided to check that out.

All of the rings were carpeted blue and decorated with beautiful Christmas trees. Tons of vendors selling everything related to dogs surrounded the rings on every side.

At noon, agility competitors were allowed to set up. We had assigned crating and were allowed to make neighbor requests. This greatly simplified the process in comparison to past years.

I finally meet Helen Hamilton in person. She shows AKC greyhounds in conformation, agility, tracking, rally, and obedience. She and I have corresponded over the last year swapping agility and tracking advice. I so wish we didn't live 3,000 miles apart. She has put multiple TDX (tracking dog excellent) titles on greyhounds and I would love for her to help me with Katie's tracking and I would love to help her with agility.

Helen has a beautiful AKC greyhound named Lyric who has done very well in the conformation ring. When Helen heard that Travis was coming to CA, she quickly qualified Lyric for the greyhound conformation invitational, so she would be there to see Travis compete. She made us feel like stars :-).

Around 3 PM, AKC offered a FAST class. FAST is a new type of agility class that I've never competed in and I don't fully understand it. BUT it provided a wonderful opportunity for the agility folks to try out the mats, warm up their dogs, and practice on the competition obstacles. The best part was that with some limitations, you could pretty much design your own course. I mostly wanted to Travis to jump and weave since his main job is to do the weaves correctly and to keep bars up. So we started with 2 jumps to the weave poles. Travis missed the weave pole entrance skipping the first 2 poles. 2nd time in, he entered on the wrong side. Hmmmm.... this isn't normal. We continued with the course I had designed and when I came back around I decided to weave one more time and this time he nailed the entrance and weaved perfectly just before our time was up..... Good dog.

On Friday night, Anna, Anne, Helen, and I had dinner with Sheryl Bartel, her husband (Chris Mott, I think), and Kathy (Helen's golden retriever friend). Sheryl is a board member for the AKC greyhound parent club (Greyhound Club of America). I am currently trying to become a member so it was great to get to know one of the board members better. The board votes on the membership application and it helps if some of them actually know you.

Leaving Atlanta

Stephen drove Travis and I to Anne Jone's house at 6 AM and we transferred all of my stuff to her van. Anne competed Kira, the #3 Ridgeback in AKC agility in 2007. Anne has the bigger van and can fit all of our stuff, 2 dogs, and 3 people easily. Stephen drove us to the Atlanta airport.

We each had an airline kennel and a dolly for it to ride on, a soft sided crate, and some luggage. As soon as we got out of the van we were immediately told by some woman that the dogs had to be in their kennels in the building that they could not walk indoors on leash for fear that a child may pull their ears. Okay, do you really think I would allow a child to do that? So we basically took off in the opposite direction and entered the building a few doors down so she could not see us. We were then immediately greeted with "your dogs will probably have to be inside the kennels while inside the building". Probably? We said ok and continued on our way. At the check-in counter, we got our paperwork taken care of and paid $150 one-way for each dog and another $100 each to ship the dolly/soft crate combo. Such a rip off! I also learned that Delta assumes you put the 2 required bowls in the crate. Number 1, I definitely do not want my dog fed. Number 2, I do not want water put into a bowl so that later it can be spilt on him and his bedding. Plus the bowls take up space. So I had the bowls in my bag just in case, but never had to get them out. Finally a large woman came by and demanded that the dogs be put in their kennels. We finally relented. The kennels were taken to an inspection area where the dogs were taken out of the crates while the crates were inspected for explosives and so on. We then loaded them back up, Travis' crate was duck taped for extra security, and a Skycap came to get them. We tipped him $20 each and told him to take good care of our dogs.

Animals are suppose to be loaded last. We chose our seats because they gave us a perfect view of the dogs being loaded. Sure enough, as soon as I got to my seat, I could see both crates, and saw each one being loaded. So we were satisfied that each was on the plane. A short time later, a flight attendant brought us our conformations that the dogs were on board.

The flight was no full so we were able to spread out, but it seemed to take forever. We arrived safely in Orange County, CA around 11:00 AM. The dogs come out of a raised chute. I let Travis out of his crate so I could put the crate down on the dolly. We were again immediately scolded and warned that we could be ticketed for having dogs out of crates. We thanked her for letting us know and continued doing what were doing. Travis seemed just fine. A little whinny and definitely not tired (is he ever?). We could not check into the Westin until 3:00 PM, so Anna (my CA best friend since age 14/15) and her husband, Mark, picked us up. It took 2 small SUVs to carry us and all of our stuff. We went to Anna's parents' house and let the dogs hang out inside, play in the yard, and Anna's mom provided us with a yummy lunch. Travis went crazy running circles on the typical postage stamp sized CA lawn...... he's definitely not tired.

We checked into the Westin at 3:00. I thought it would be busy, but it was super quick an easy. In fact, the whole trip thus far had been so seamless and simple. The room was big and very nice. At $154 a night, it better be...... way out of my usual Motel 6 price range. The bed was very comfortable and very WHITE. But we were being charged another $75 for a pet cleaning fee, so I let Travis sleep on the bed. The bathroom was nice and the shower had 2 shower heads. I'd never seen that before.

The Health Certificate

In the dark of night, we met in the shadows to complete the deal.......... Travis' health certificate. Dr. Lou Avant and I met at Wills Park at 6:30 PM yesterday. She is not my regular vet and is just weeks away from opening a brand new animal hospital, so we met at a half way point we were both familiar with............. Wills Park... where Atlanta's agility trials are held. It was kind of funny.... we felt like we were doing a drug deal or something. She quickly looked over Travis and gave me the paperwork she had already filled out. Payment for services rendered will be a souvenir from the Invitational.

Warm Up in Huntsville, AL

Travis and I competed at the Huntsville Obedience Training Club's agility trial in Priceville, AL this weekend. Michelle (a dog training friend), Ellie (English Springer), and Emma (Dalmatian) traveled with Travis, Katie, and I Thanksgiving evening to AL. We shared expenses and stayed in a lovely Motel 6. Only one vehicle had its window punched out Saturday morning........ and it wasn't my van, so life is good. I think there were a few shady deals (drugs?) going on a few doors down in the wee hours of the morning and night. But no one dared to mess with me while I had my 2 big dogs dressed in penguin and leopard print fleece PJs. Who wouldn't be scared to approach that? The van did give us a good scare with the engine light coming on and a sluggish start. I had Advanced Auto Parts read the error code for me and it turned out to be the same code I had last time. I remembered that last time when I researched the code, it said to tighten your gas cap because air might be leaking in and causing the error. I tried that and Bingo! It worked.

It was an interesting weekend. Travis was either brilliant or humbling. He earned 3 first places and 1 second place. He earned another QQ and 130 speed or MACH points. In fact, we earned 40 points on just one run.... the most we ever have. So overall a great weekend. But on the 2 courses he did not qualify, he either displaced a jump bar or missed his weave pole entrance. Its my job to give good directions, but its his job to keep the rails up and to complete the weaves correctly. These kinds of mistakes don't happen often, but I would just prefer not to see any while we are in California. All in all, I think we ran really well. He is as fast as ever and very responsive. I felt very focused and was happy with my preparation for each course. I ran perfectly..................... well almost. There was this one section where I was crossing in front of him and needed to direct him to the jump right behind me. In doing so, I almost ran into a jump and tripped. This put me in a bad position and would normally cause Travis to turn towards me (missing the next jump), but I threw out my arm and told him to go and he did. So he saved my butt on that one and we qualified. Good dog!

So I think we are ready for the invitational. I am very excited and can't sleep anymore. I think this weekend was a good warm up....... we had some brilliant courses to make me feel confident about CA, but also a couple of reminders to make sure I put Travis in the best position for weaves and jump take offs. For rounds 1 - 4, we need to run clean..... Travis will be plenty fast, so no need to drive for that.

And kudos to husband, Stephen, who cleaned house while I was gone. He washed and changed the sheets. He washed people and DOG laundry! Washed dishes and EMPTIED the dishwasher. I always tell him that nothing is sexier on a man then dish pan hands. :-)

Acupuncture

So much for the plateau, the physical therapist was really excited about Katie's progress in the last 5 days. She didn't appear to be using her inner thigh muscles on Thursday, but they were working yesterday (Tuesday). I think I have to attribute that to the acupuncture she received on Monday. It seems so hokey and I have no idea what it does, but for mystery pains, spinal injuries, and neurological problems... I highly recommend it. I would bet that it is helpful for a lot of other problems as well. I really think that Katie made excellent progress initially because she had acupuncture in the first 24 hours of the stroke. She also had instances of showing progress walking out of the hospital after an acupuncture procedure. It was amazing. We go to Dr. Diane Castle at Union Hill Animal Hospital in Canton, GA.

No More Scrunchies!

Yeah! The physical therapist said we can stop using scrunchies. Quite frankly, they didn't have any effect on her anyway. It didn't matter if she was wearing scrunchies, bells, whatever, she was not going to pick her feet up any higher. Katie did another 20 minutes on the water treadmill. We also spent a great deal of time working on the "twist". I reminded Jonna that she probably sprained or tore her groin and/or inner thigh. After much observation, she feels that the "twist" stems from her neurological problems and not an injury to her muscle. With that, we played around with tying the left leg to a front leg and to the other back let with an elastic tie. It was awkward and didn't alleviate the "twist". We also taped a plastic cap to the bottom of her good foot to see if she'd put more weight on the left foot and it didn't really create the change we wanted either. Oh, well. We'll just have to keep working. We are allowed to hike now. I think walking through the woods with all the fallen branches and leaves will encourage her to pick up her feet. We also can stop doing cavelettis on days that she gets to hike. So I am very happy about that too.


Yesterday, we went to Chattanooga for Travis' last agility practice on mats. He did very well and ran clean. However, he has bloody nail beds on his outside toes on the front feet. One looks especially bad. I think it is from the pressure he puts on the nail beds when his nails make contact with the mats. They are not as forgiving as natural footing. I have been working to shorten his nails as much as possible. I try to dremel or file them back a little every other day or so. I worked on them again this morning and ended up filing all the way down to the quick and getting a tiny drop of blood on the nail with the especially bad nail bed. I hope it will stimulate the quick to pull back and that it all heals quickly. He is not lame, but I would obviously like for him to be problem free at the invitational.



Also in Chattanooga, this is where Katie had her accident. It was nice for the folks who helped us that night to see her feeling much better. Melodi had helped me carry her through the parking lot and put her in the van. She had seen Katie at her absolute worst and had heard her painful screams. She helped me decide what to do and rallied the others to gather up my things, fold up my crate, and bring Travis out to the van. So I was especially excited to show Katie off to Melodi who was relieved to see how well she was doing. Everyone else was happy to see her doing so well also.

Complaint of the Day

OK, I'm going to complain even though I have no right to. I'm tired of having to leash walk Katie everywhere we go (including in my house and fenced yard). I'm a little discouraged by the lack of progress in the last week or 2. Its like she did 4 months of progress in 25 days and now we are just at this plateau. In fact, I almost think she has looked worse the last couple of days. Rehab is just plain boring (Katie would agree with me on that)..................15 minutes of caveletti work is a very long time! I'm tired of people at the park thinking I'm weird because my dog has scrunchies on her ankles. I'm upset that she's retired. Now if you had told me that this was as good as it was going to get that night sitting in the ER vet's waiting room........ I would have been extremely relieved. I just cannot believe how well a dog can bounce back from a spinal injury. But now we are on Day 30 something and I'm spoiled. I'm used to seeing amazing progress. However, like I said, I have no right to complain. Life is good and we are very lucky............. just ignore me right now :-).

Odds and Ends

Katie swam for an hour again tonight. Eva really worked her good. She did a lot of just bringing her to one end of the pool and letting Katie swim her hardest to the other end where I was waiting with a treat. Her little face was cute with desperation..... you would have thought she hadn't eaten in days, but that is Katie for you. She was really using her hind legs good during these fast swims. I am also going to try to swim her more frequently. Katie has this twist that occurs from weakness with each step of the left hind leg. I fear that it may become permanent as she continues to walk this way and practice it. It wouldn't be the end of the world if it continues, but we will strive for 100% and see what we get. She is negotiating the downside of small flights of stairs fairly well now. She still isn't using her left leg very well when she squats to go potty. I try to force her to keep it in line with the other hind leg. If not, she sometimes loses her balance and falls. I did let her canter/gallop/run.... whatever you want to call it....... for a few strides yesterday. I put her in a sit stay and called her to me. She did fine, but was definitely a bit out of balance so I think we will wait longer before doing that again.

Travis and I are getting ready for the invitational in CA. He is running very well. We were able to get some practice indoors on mats last Saturday. He ran very well and the course was very tricky. I've started to pack, I've made my lists, and I am feeling pretty organized about it at this point. Stephen is going to take Katie to swimming and to physical therapy while I am gone.......... huge load off me. I wasn't sure when I was going to find the time to go before and after the trip. Thanks, Stephen!

And Rory, the agility greyhound from Indiana, is doing better. He is being treated with antibiotics and steroids. Sharon is going to be working with a neurologist to try and determine the best course of action going forward.

More Physical Therapy

Today, Katie and I went to our second physical therapy session. Again, the therapist was pleased with the progress. Katie did another 20 minutes on the water treadmill. This time the jets were turned on to increase the resistance and the speed was increased. She is not quite ready to trot on the treadmill yet, but she was doing a fairly fast pace covering 0.37 miles. That sounds so short to me, but I was assured that was a good distance for a water treadmill. In the first picture (upper right) you can see that the therapist has her hand on Katie. This is to keep her traveling straight since the weaker left side tends to drift further left. Recall in the last session that she had 2 orange noodles between her left side and the Plexiglas to keep her straight. Anyways, about half way through Katie corrected herself and started to travel straight all on her own without a helping hand (see bottom right). Katie was a trooper throughout her session. I over heard a conversation with the next client saying they were going to put a diaper on the dog because he has a habit of pooping in the water. So glad my dog doesn't do that! We left with our homework - 30 minute walks with scrunchies around the feet, 3-5 minutes of jogging, and 15 minutes of caveletti work. She did say that I could let Katie run around in the yard as long as she could maintain balance and wasn't too crazy.............hmmmm.... I'll pass for now since Katie is famous for spinning especially during cool temperatures. I might try some recalls with Stephen where we call her back and forth. At least that way we can keep her on flat ground and straight.

Just Mean!

What's this? A toy?

Time elapsed - approximately 2 minutes.

Rory

Think good thoughts for Rory. Rory is an agility greyhound in Indiana. He is 10 years old. I've met Rory and his mom, Sharon Smith, twice at TN agility trials and we have corresponded for several years via email. He started to slow down and to not be himself in agility a few months ago. The vet found some back troubles and had her rest Rory for 4-6 weeks. Recently, he got worse. She had a myelogram done today and they found all sorts of things - "He has multiple ruptured discs in his neck but none show severe compression on the spinal cord or inflammation. He is missing a bone in the front of his neck (hyoid) on one side which is most likely been missing since birth but there is a small possibility that it has been destroyed. Also his back disc has area consistent with something called diskospondylitis which may be infectious. " Basically, they aren't sure which issue is causing his problem. It makes Katie's spinal stroke sound so easy. I hope he can recover as well as Katie has. He is in good shape like she is.

The Latest Style

This weekend, I competed Travis at the 4 Paw Agility Club trial. He did very well. He earned his 29th double Q on Saturday (11 more to go), a first place in Jumpers on Sunday, and 53 MACH points for the weekend. He didn't qualify in Sunday's Standard class because he missed the contact zone (yellow) on the dog walk. Otherwise it was a beautiful course. He's just running very smooth and consistent this year. Sometimes it seems like the Qs are so few and far between, but this has really been our year.

Katie continued to amaze everyone with her progress. It makes me feel good to hear people notice the improvement from just last weekend. It is sometimes harder for me to see because I'm looking at her everyday. For those of you who have not seen her since before the injury, I don't think you are even going to believe it really happened. I think most people would not notice a problem right now and only someone with a good eye would see a bit of a hitch in her stride. She still gets herself into trouble sometimes and can't move the left leg like she used to. She still can't go down stairs on her own or have free access to our tile and hardwood floor covered house. Although she is pretty happy being relegated to the ex-pen. She is the only one getting a rawhide chip, bully stick, or Greenie each day for jail time.

Today, Lou Avant (borzoi person and vet) loaned me some purple bells to put around her ankles. They matched her purple collar famously and Katie turned heads as she jingled all the way. I have to admit I felt pretty silly and would shout out "Its rehab!" to anyone who was staring at us. The purpose of the bells or the scrunchies are to remind her to use her feet and to encourage her to exaggerate the motion of the leg. I think I'll stick with the scrunchies. At least they do not make noise and attract attention.

Our other rehab exercise is 15 minutes of caveletti work. I actually use the boards from my obedience broad jump and just turn them on their ends to create a 7 - 8 inch high jump. Katie, of course, wants to jump them, but the point is for her to slowly and deliberately step over each one and to again exaggerate the motion of each leg, but especially the left hind leg. This is quite boring, but I try to keep Katie entertained by giving her her a treat for stepping correctly over a few boards. She has caught on to the idea. She puts her head down and gets to work.

Look at those rear legs working hard!!!

Drive

The one thing that truly makes Travis a great agility dog is the amount of "drive" he has. I would define drive as a combination between speed, enthusiasm, and motivation. Drive is what makes a dog want to complete an agility course as fast as he or she can. They slam down on the teeter, burst through tunnels, fly through weave poles, and jump as fast as they can. It doesn't matter what is in the way. They strive to get it done as fast as they can. Jump sequences that include pinwheels or 270 degree turns can really slow down a dog without much drive. Some dogs don't see the point in running an agility course as fast as they can especially if they are afraid they may do the wrong obstacle. Others may get distracted by sights or smells. Before Travis entered the scene, Katie certainly raised the bar with greyhounds when she ran agility. She was quite a bit faster than any of the other past agility greyhounds and easily toppled past records. She was smooth, accurate, and consistent. She was a lot more driven than a lot of sighthounds, but she didn't see the point in running the course as fast as she could. There were times when I could outrun her if I needed to get in front. She ran agility fast, but only so fast. Travis on the other hand would never allow me to outrun him. In fact, I have to be careful not to give him the impression that we are racing because he will most certainly beat me. I sometimes try to do my rushing when he is in a tunnel and cannot see me. Travis could do tight 270 degree turns as fast as he can all day long. I want to always remember how great it feels to have this Ferrari of a greyhound as my teammate. That all I have to do is point out a finger and run and he is right there no matter what. I am so thankful that at 9 years old he still feels like a youngster and I hope that he keeps on amazing me over the next few years with just how young he looks and feels.

I got forced to buy this T-shirt recently. Thank goodness, Travis is a pretty dog :-). One of the photographers had photographed him for some breed prints and she used him as an example to make this T-shirt..... and of course it was just my size. A bit pricey for a T-shirt, but it will be nice to wear at the agility invitational in CA.


Since the photographer used Travis for some stuff she will sell, she offered me an 8 X 10 of my choice. So I had this photograph done of Katie and Travis together. I love it. Its so much fun to be able to pose dogs, ask them to stay, and take off their collars. So train those dogs including the greyhounds!