OOOOH Breeze!

The thing with a dog like Breeze is that it is always an up and down process-one day things are going great and when I start feeling secure and like things are going to be OK, boom, things go downhill again, and after awhile I wonder why I even go through emotional highs and lows with it when I should be prepared for these shifts-but, guess I haven't got there yet.

WELL, I was riding on a high with Breeze and really if all her trouble from the past year has been that ACL injury....then she had not had any trouble that I could really attribute to the hip dysplasia, so she was doing so well, I sort of thought maybe she is going to be lucky and do pretty well. I knew she wouldn't be able to say run five or six runs a day or anything crazy, but she was looking so good. All of that came crashing down and now Breeze is doing quite a bit of compensating and it really looks like the hips. When she is a little tired then she will sort of run and not bend the one leg, and whenever she is jumping she does not shift her weight to the back end and is doing all sorts of weird jumping. This morning was the first day in her life that I noticed Breeze looked stiff getting up.

I just feel so sick. I wonder if I am even meant to be able to do agility. It looks like even if Breeze is able to do agility she needs to do very short sessions, not a lot of repetitions and if she had a decent handler....maybe she could do it. The problem is that she is an inexperienced dog and I need to practice and get my timing down...so I just do not know how this is going to work.

To make it really bad someone came down on me for even thinking of trying to do a whole lesson or class with her-that really made me feel like whale poop and so I am feeling like maybe I am just a selfish boob for even wanting to do any type of agility with her. You know how it really hits hard when someone comes down on you for what you are already coming down on yourself for? Honest to gosh she had just been doing so well and looking so good and she loves it so much and it does keep her in good shape which is also important for her, and I knew it would be a balancing act but I would never hurt her. If she can not do agility she will be so upset whenever the others get to go out and play, so hopefully she will always at least be able to feel like she is out there with the others and doing what she can do.

So here I am with my little rag tag gang- could I handle the sheer number of dogs I would have to have if I try one more time for another puppy? Maybe do some rally with Breeze and maybe even Lizzie? Not to mention with all of my dogs I have spent so much time training them to this level, and gosh it would just be so cool if I could finally get past this point with one dog and really start trialing and having fun doing agility on the next level-starting with a puppy would be fun, but I would be back at square one again. I would just like to finally have ONE dog that was just fun and didn't have a lot of problems. I love all my problem children but....just one easy dog, is that too much to ask for? LOL, maybe it is.

So hopefully I am pushing the panic button unnecessarily, I do have an appointment with my holistic vet on Monday morning-so maybe it is just doing more that has done this to Breeze, but honestly I can not imagine that she is not going to have to severely limit the amount she can do agility for sure so that she stays healthy long term.

I just wish dogs like this came with little booklets that would tell us what is the right thing and exactly how much we should do and should not do, the exact formula to keep them happy and healthy mind and body.