It Starts With a Frisbee

As you know, Riley suffered a hock joint fracture.  The story begins last Tuesday when I had quickly worked the girls on weave poles and was finishing up with a game of fetch.  Riley had caught and returned her frisbee several times.  I am always so cautious about toe injuries since they are so common with greyhounds.  I like that I can throw the frisbee and the dogs often can catch it mid stride.  But while everyone else allows the frisbee to come down, Riley likes to go after it and jumps quite high to do so.

On our last throw, Riley jumped up to catch her frisbee and came down on her hind legs like she normally does.  There was nothing awkward about it except that I heard a "click".  No verbal complaints from Riley, but it was obviously very painful and she was not willing to bear any weight.

I saw that nothing was visibly broken.  I was hoping she would just walk out of it, but after giving her a minute there was no change.  I was pretty sure it had to be a fracture since I had heard the "click".  Damn it!

I loaded Riley into the van at 6:00 PM and called my vet to see if there was any chance of getting in that evening.  I was too late and my vet is off on Tuesdays anyway so it was worth waiting till morning.  However, I was on my way to my agility instructor's field to meet a new canine chiropractor. 

Dr. N gave Riley a quick "field" examination and declared that she thought it was a torn ACL in her knee.  I was very disappointed by this news as I would rather deal with a fracture (at least I thought I did) than a torn knee ligament.  Bones often heal quicker and easier than soft tissues.

 Can you find the bone chip?

For comparison sake, here is an x-ray of the uninjured hock joint.

The next morning, I took Riley to see my vet.  Dr. C followed me out to the parking lot to get Riley and in a 1 minute "parking lot" examination stated there was nothing wrong with Riley's knee, but that her hock was the source of the problem.  We took her inside for x-rays. 

The bone chip is inside the "V" point.

Riley was wonderful for x-rays.  Dr. C allowed me to help position her for each x-ray and to feed treats.  The x-rays exposed a bone chip in her hock and Dr. C felt it would require surgery.  He was not sure whether it should be screwed in or taken out so he referred me to an orthopedic specialist.

Chip Off The Old Hock

When it rains, it pours....  Healed completely from her minor toe sprain, Riley now has a tiny fracture or bone chip in her hock joint.  It is a huge disappointment and calls for two months of rest.  She is not even allowed to swim.  Luckily, we are avoiding surgery... at least so far. 

It happened on Tuesday while Riley was catching her Frisbee.  She jumped up to catch it and landed with her hind legs first like she always does.  I heard a little "click" sound and she has been lame ever since. Here are two pictures of Riley jumping up like she does.

I will post all the gory details in a couple of days. I am just so tired and behind in life at the moment.

Steady Progress

Seven is making steady progess on her weave poles.  I have been able to remove 4 of the 10 guides that are attached to the poles.  I have also gone back to working on the 2X2 method (Click Here for my 2X2 post) which is a great way to explain correct entrances to the dogs.

Check out Seven's progress!

That Sucked!

Riley Greyhound and I headed up to Tennessee for another obedience trial. It was definitely not worth six hours of driving round trip. It turns out that Riley is quite picky about the flooring. After a couple of sits, she simple would not sit anymore.  I eventually stopped asking for them as I did not want to practice being ignored.  The bright side is that her attitude was very good and she was happy.  So here is a nice video of us totally sucking!

One person outside the ring offered a suggestion.  She thought that I might be confusing Riley with my stand signal and stay hand signal.  I cue a stand with my left hand and because this was a problem for us in the past, I cue my stays with my right hand.  This strategy eliminated the confusion.  We have not practiced Novice exercises in awhile (including stands) so maybe I was getting sloppy.  However, thanks to the video, I can confirm that I am still cuing her correctly and that it is quite obvious she is avoiding.

Luckily, the judge excused us from doing sit and down stays.  There was no way we would have succeeded so I would not have done them anyway, but it was nice to have the judge's blessing as it is bad manners to just duck out.

So dang it! Greyhound sits are already hard enough. I certainly do not want to cause her any discomfort.  Lengthy sit stays are already very difficult for Riley so I am not going to start a fight and insist that she sit stay on a floor she does not even want to sit for 3 seconds on.  Unfortunately, most of our obedience trials are held indoors, on concrete, with thin matting.  It appears to me that if the matting has any texture at all, she does not like it. Fun, fun.

Sorry, Daddy!

Hurry up, Mom...

Seven has been a bad girl and ruined a pair of Stephen's socks.  She seems very attracted to a certain type of stretchy fabric that is often used to make socks, underwear, and vetwrap.

Recently, I was out hiking with Riley and Seven when Seven found a sock.  She was quite proud of herself and carried it all the way back to the car for her Daddy... sorry for the low budget camera phone video.

So very thoughtful of Seven.

This is for you, Daddy!

Does Peanut Swim?

It is possible that my niece, Peanut, might swim if we let her sink, but this is as close as she comes to swimming.  She is just way too relaxed.

But just to prove that Peanut is not a parapalegic, I wanted to share this clip of Peanut coursing a mutt.  Run, Peanut! Run!

But Peanut is all in all a lazy greyhound who will take a butt scratch from whoever she can get one from.

And for Elizabeth, Travis thought swimming and retrieving was a blast!  He even dock jumped (Click Here).

Swimming Lesson

I could not let Riley have all of the fun so Seven had her first swimming lesson.  Seven is definitely not a water dog.  She is slowly starting to show signs of realizing its value when she needs to cool off, but otherwise she tends to not get wet above her toes.

Seven did really well. Sometimes my greyhounds will not eat the first time they swim, but Seven was not about to let this experience curb her appetite.

Of course, Peanut, my sister's greyhound, supervised from a comfortable post at all times.

Swimming

No one kicks off summer quite like my sister's lounge hound, Peanut.  She loves nothing more than relaxing by the pool and cannot wait for it to open each summer.

Since Riley is on a modified lay up for her mild toe sprain, swimming was an excellent way to exercise her.  She has been in the pool numerous times over the last several summers so this is not new to her.  She does not love it, but she knows the drill and swims for her treats.  As always, I used the inflatable e-collar to keep ears and nose above water (click here to buy one).  It is a terrible e-collar, but it works great for keeping your dog's head above water, but does not provide as much support as a life jacket.  This encourages them to swim more and to use their hind legs.

Riley was not impressed.

Thanks for letting us swim in your pool, Parkers!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!  To my non-USA readers, the 4th of July is basically America's birthday and most Americans enjoy the day off!

My niece, Peanut, making the most of the day.

Of course, Riley and I were on TV again yesterday.  Part 2 did air despite not ever being listed.  Thank goodness a friend happened upon it and texted me just in time so I did not miss it (Thank you, Cat!).  I am hoping I can pull my portion from my in-laws' DVD recordings and upload to my blog for all to see.

Lastly, I thought this was an interesting patriotic story.  Not a dog, but actually a horse, but I figure we are all animal lovers here.

Suddenly Famous

Well, now that Riley and I have been on TV, you must be wondering how Riley is coping with all of this fame. She is managing...

It was very cool to see us on a regular TV channel on a Sunday afternoon.  The program was very professional with our names and bio included.  Southeastern Greyhound Adoption got a nice mention.

It was very exciting.  BUT it is very disappointing to find that the second show will not air in Atlanta.  Part 2 is the show that included the 30 Down and Back Weave Pole Challenge.  It did air in other areas of the country and my in-laws were able to record both shows on DVD (thanks MIL and FIL) so I will eventually get to see it.

I believe the shows will continue to air throughout July.  I even heard that it was seen in Canada.  Remember you can check for your local listings by clicking here.  Type in your zip code and hit the return key.