Cricket and Breeze's vet visit

BREEZE WHO SAYS IT IS HARD TO BE A BIG SISTER TO A CRICKET



TWO DOGGIES WITH TWO NEW BIG PINK BALLS!



CRICKET POSING


WOW, LOOK HOW THEY WORKED THINGS OUT SO EACH ONE OF THEM COULD PLAY WITH A NEW BALL, THEY REALLY DO GET ALONG WELL


WHAT A HAPPY GIRL-BREEZE THINKS SHE IS A LITTLE TOO HAPPY SOMETIMES, lol



Breeze and Cricket got two new big pink balls because they were such good girls at the vet today.

Cricket got to go to the vet to get her rabies shot. She was fantastic, she marched into the vets office like she owned the place and was trying to run and jump at everyone she saw. She looked like she was wiggling and wagging her back half so hard she could wag it right off. Cricket is one happy girl. Unfortunately, it is the vet that Breeze usually goes to by herself and she was not happy Cricket was acting so excited in her vets office, so she kept giving Cricket the stink eye trying to warn her to settle down and kept going over and grabbing her muzzle in her mouth when Cricket would get too exuberant. Poor Cricket it is hard to have a big sister that runs such a tight ship.

Cricket got to go to the cute little boutique we found after the vets office. The groomer there just LOVED her and kept giving her the most marvelous treats....Cricket picked out two of the best pink balls, we have never seen such big balls with feet, it squeeks so nicely and it is PINK-I think they are called cuz balls, but this one is much bigger then the other ones we have. The second ball is a jolly ball but does not have a handle, lately the handles usually do not make it past the first play session so it is good there are no handles, maybe this one will last at least a week ;-).

Breeze....What can I say about my Breeze? Last summer Breeze hurt her back/neck area and was not able to do the weaves in a trial. After that it seemed she got a lot better but never really got totally well. We were having a lot of weave problems but sometimes it is so hard to tell, is it a training issue or is it that the weaves had hurt and she got used to avoiding them or are they still hard for her??? How do you ever really know?

We have worked on Breezes striding through the weaves with some WAM weave poles and I put her through slightly open channels--Breeze was having a gorgeous stride through the weaves as long as we had aids to make it easier. The minute I tried to go back to regular straight up and down weaves she could not maintain a stride through all twelve poles. As she got down the line of poles she would sort of just not be able to continue striding and would have to skip a pole, then gather herself and start again. As time went on I could tell she really was trying hard and knew what to do but she just couldn't do it.

Then I noticed the Aframe stride had changed. She has had the same stride for three years and why would she change so drastically now? Hummm, my suspicion was increasing.

Last week at class I noticed that Breeze who always has the tightest turns was turning these giant, wide turns. Deanna said she saw Breeze cranking her head and neck into a tight turn but her back end was just not able to follow, her back legs were working really hard to try to pull her rear end around a turn but just were not doing well. The last day or two I was practicing in the park - just sending Breeze around trees, light posts, etc so I could really watch and at times doing right hand turns her back end almost flew out from under her, she really seemed to have trouble maintaining her footing and working her back end.

Well, the doctor said that Breeze was really not feeling good, her neck was way out, her vertebra mid back were really out of place. Her right hip was really high and twisted. So Breeze got an adjustment and a laser treatment for her back and some acupuncture and she will go back for the same treatment next week. It was funny because as I was holding Breezes head and the doctor manipulated her vertebra mid back I could feel Breeze just sigh and relax-even though she is not fond of being touched, it really seemed to feel good to her. I have never seen such definite signs of relief from her before. So today we have light activity, half regular activity tomorrow and pretty normal activity until next week when she get another treatment and see how things held up. Poor Breeze, I am really getting pretty tired of the non stop injuries. I really hope this helps her feel better. The good thing is other then the things I noticed during agility, Breeze looks pretty good most of the time,...she is not dropping bars, she looks good running, she is not taking weird steps so hopefully we get her neck and back worked out and she will hit another good patch physically!

The vet was really pleased with all the rear end work we had been doing, the perch work, the backing up stairs, the sits to stands and the core work, and of course the stretching, I have concenrated the stretching more on her hips and back legs, and from the work the vet did today I think she needs more stretching on her front legs and shoulders, which makes sense with the problems I saw striding through the weaves and over the aframe.