Riley coming out of the chute.
I took Seven and Riley to a four day agility trial in Nashville last weekend and it was a bust. The drive up took an extra one and a half hours due to thick traffic caused by an accident. That probably should have been a warning to me.
Seven jumping through the tire.
Neither greyhound ran clean on Thursday and it appeared that we were in for a repeat on Friday except Riley and I were able to sneak in a qualifying Jumpers run.
After that run, I thought the girls could use more exercise so I grabbed a Zanie Flyer and headed outside. I found a nicely manicured lawn near the parking lot. It was flat, mowed, and even had post and board fencing we had to crawl under to get inside. I proceeded to play fetch with Riley. Since fracturing her hock, I am careful not to throw it high anymore, but I still have concerns. Often Riley will overrun the toy, only to come to a screeching halt and torquing herself in all directions. A fractured anything would not be a surprise. But did it stop me......NOOOOO! Sure enough. Riley comes up lame.... dead lame. She even yelps and holds up the right rear leg. Dang it! Why am I such an idiot?
Riley remained seriously lame Friday evening and Saturday. I noticed some swelling around the puncture (remember that took 3 weeks to close and that was several weeks ago) so I iced the area several times a day. Obviously, she was unable to run on Saturday and Sunday. She was so lame that I was actually concerned about a second fracture initially. I thought about leaving the trial and getting her to the vet on Saturday, but regardless of the diagnosis, I figured nothing would be done until Monday.
Riley getting her foot iced.
A vet at the trial (thank you, Karen) examined Riley and agreed the area near the old puncture was to blame. We started to wonder if there could be a foreign body still lodged inside of the puncture. I thought we had ruled that out a few weeks ago with x-rays, but was starting to question again.
Seven coming out of tunnel.
In the meanwhile, Seven continued to compete in agility. Out of eight runs, she only qualified once. My attitude was bad, we were out of sync, and Seven was making typical novice dog errors. Here is the one run we got it together.
On Sunday, Seven and I were more in sync. Though non-qualifying, both runs were very good and I feel we ended on a good note.
Riley continued to limp, but would warm out of it and improve significantly after taking a few steps. I had already spoken to my vet and scheduled an appointment for Monday. The plan was to determine if there was a foreign body and if so, open up the area and remove it, but things just don't always go as planned.
