2-17-10

The lack of posts are because of laziness more than anything, but the last few weeks have been traumatic. The hitch in MO’s leg turns out to be a result of patellar luxation – her kneecap shifts out of position – and requires surgery. She is scheduled to go in next Tuesday and will require two weeks of crate rest, two weeks of walking only and then some period of time to rebuild the lost muscle. We are extremely stressed about the situation, nightmares and lack of sleep are primarily the signs, and if that wasn’t enough the prospect of keeping her in a crate for two weeks is deadly.

Malibu
Sunny and Bob

MO stayed home

Stevie

The last few weeks in Malibu Stevie has shown more and more of a middle finger, once she even left the ring to get some water and then went around the outside and back under the fence to gather the sheep completely ignoring the handler.

Today she was almost perfect. Her lie downs are getting more consistent and somehow stand is sorting itself out too. She doesn’t always lie down on the first command, sometimes I have to lean into her or repeat the command a second or third time, but I was able to get her to stop on command even in a trot and lie down.

For the second run we practiced the beginning AHBA course of two cones at each end of the arena, take the dog off leash and show she can stay calm then send her. The dog fetches the sheep and then the handler walks the dog and the sheep up to the far cone and back and then back up all within 10 minutes. We did it very cleanly and with plenty of time, the biggest weakness being a bit of circling. Janna says a good handler will either stop the dog if they start circling or start to turn with it so to mask the mistake.