Catching up

I apologize for the lack of posts the past few weeks--life has been rather crazy for me...and the girls. Here's a quick summary of the past few weeks:

I was able to take the girls back home to Indiana to visit my parents on their farm for a few days. This was Mesa's first trip to my parents, which meant first time sleeping loose in the mud room, first trips to the barn, first upclose encounters with the horses, etc., etc. She was very good! (Granted, her house breaking didn't hold up overnight being loose and on the opposite end of the house (no one could hear her cry to go potty), but she was back on the ball the first night back in Lexington.) Her first trips to the barn were kept on leash, but she was able to roam around and had good recall when I couldn't hear her trotting around while I cleaned stalls. I'm not too sure how she would be while I rode the horses (Dally follows along for a short bit and then sit and wait until I was done working a horse), so she stayed up at the house for that. I think I'll wait until she's older and hopefully more mature.

Dally's been taking some time off from agility due to some sore hips that were discovered after the Louisville Cluster in March. My Indiana vet put her on some Rimadyl to help with the inflammation and recommended four weeks off. Our family friend, who is a massage therapist who works on people, horses, and dogs, discovered her SI joint was out of whack, as well as having her diaphram being stuck, thus pulling a couple of vertebrae. The four week break has been rough on her--no tennie ball, no agility, no long walks, and no runs. The last two weeks of my class with Melanie I ran her young Chihuahua, Rupp, who is a rock star and much faster. This way I was able to get some training in on a faster dog, like how Mesa will be.

Mesa has been doing well with her training. She's doing solid sits, downs, and spins. We've added "Give me paw!" to our routine (I offer my hand and she puts her paw in it), as well as working at sitting at heal (sitting straight at my side). Our walks have good days and bad days, where she doesn't want to concentrate on walking straight ahead and she gets distracted easily, but once I say her name, she straightens up and puts focus back on me...even if it's just for a few seconds.

Dally's next agility trial isn't until late May in Hamilton, Ohio, at our favorite trial site (an indoor soccer facility with astroturf). Until then, we'll take it easy when our four weeks are up (end of next week) and work back up into our solid form. For Mesa, we'll keep working on the basics and reining in her energy. One positive thing....she can put on a sliding stop when I yell "Whoa!" (It's the horse trainer in me!)

Happy Spring!!