To read an early article from Linda Mecklenburg, click here. (Thanks Diane!)
Fin does not have trouble all the time. There is absolutely a pattern emerging:
- spreads
- coming out of the tunnel at speed
- if I get to far ahead
Some of the information out there seems sorta negative. I am taking the approach that it is a learning situation and obviously Fin learned to be not confident and we are going to teach her that she "CAN DO IT!"
To that end I'm setting up jump grids in the yard. My good friend Laurie is struggling with the same thing. Her dog had an illiopsoas injury and started early jumping spreads (sound familiar?). She came down and shared her knowledge with me and am working the grids she recommended.
At the end of the month Susan Salo will be in the area and we are meeting with her to get more ideas.
And of course, I've got some great minds working on ideas (my trainers and friends).
In the meantime, I have moved her to performance for the two USDAA shows at the end of the month where she won't have to see any spreads. We can play without the spreads :) Can't wait to get back into competition!
1 comment:
This is what we think was wrong with Ruby. She had years of a vicious cycle of crashing through jumps, slowly going from 16" to 12" to 8" to now mostly just bars on ground, sometimes being lame, sometimes not.
It was kind of a relief when the doctors finally figured out she had 2 things going on-one is PRA that has probably been drastically affecting her vision for years, and one is an immune system thing that visibly attacks the eyes but also might have been contributing to off and on tendonitis that caused all her off and on lamenesses for all that time. Both are permanent conditions that can be treated but not cured.
Certainly not a good prognosis for competing in agility, but we've devised a way she can actually do agility in a modified way, and until she loses more sight she's happy as a clam.
We know another dog that has this jumping problem though, who has been thoroughly checked out by dog eye doctors and vets that can't find anything wrong. So sometimes mysterious, sometimes mystery solved.
Oh no your toe! No jumping for you!
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