Sunday, February 28, 2010

Crack that Back!

A couple of Thursdays ago, Marz twisted his back playing fetch at the park. I threw the ball for Marz, turned, threw another ball for Remix, turned back to Marz and saw him coming down the hill doing an odd twisting motion. It was one of those movements where you think to yourself, "Uh-oh, that didn't look good."

I stretched all his legs and examined him for any injury - Marz just wanted to get up and play more ball and seemed fine.  We stopped the game and walked around a bit when I noticed a bloody pawprint on my jeans - alas, Remix had torn a pad.  So, we packed up and went home.

The next couple of days, Marz showed no indication of discomfort or pain.  We went to flyball practice as usual on Sunday.  His box turns were poopy, a little more poopy than usual.  When I was reviewing the video, I noticed that Marz was taking 2 strides between the jump and the box.  Normally he takes one and throws himself at the box.  We've tried EVERYTHING to teach him to take two strides and nothing ever took (reverted back to muscle memory).  I wish I could say it was our re-training working, but, I knew it wasn't . . . something was wrong. I stretched, prodded, flexed his legs and I could only elicit discomfort when I rubbed his lumbar muscles. Ugh. A back injury.

So, Monday we went to our vet and Dr. Wilson confirmed that indeed, he had torqued his back.  One week of rest, some Metacam, and return to exercise to see how he does.  I also asked her about seeing a doggie chiropractor to see if this might give him some relief.  Dr. Wilson said it would be okay if we wanted to try an adjustment as well.

Kathy and her dogs go to Love Pet Hospital which offers acupuncture and chiropractic services as well as traditional care.  We decided to give them a try.

Marz went to work with me (where he was spoiled rotten and loved by all my coworkers) since our appointment was at 10:40am in South Austin (about 10-15 minutes away from my work).  When we got to the appointment, the hospital staff was very appreciative that I brought fully completed paperwork (typed up in Acrobat - yes, I am THAT anal retentive and OCD).  We were escorted into the room with little to no wait.

Our appointment was with Dr. Davenport and she was great with Marz.  She worked well over his body to find the areas where he was uncomfortable, felt him moving, discovered there was a bit of subluxation in his shoulder (but it popped back no problem) and was very thorough.  After her initial exam and our consultation, Dr. Davenport did the adjustment.  The impact on Marz was incredible.  He stood still and silently and with each adjustment a wave of relief washed over his face.  I could actually see the results in his expression!

We also did acupuncture - Marz kept trying to roll over for belly rubs, so next time we'll do "cold laser" acupuncture.  It apparently has the same effects, but the wiggly squiggly dogs do not have to worry about popping out their needles.

Our next appointment is Tuesday and Dr. D. will assess to see if he's well enough to compete next weekend.  I think I will also see about setting up a monthly chiropractic visit for ALL the competitive dogs - I know how I feel after getting adjusted and saw how Marz felt.  Makes sense to give all the dogs the benefit of regular chiropractic maintenance.

So, we're sold on the back cracking for dogs.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Agility Brags


Pogo earned his ADCH title last weekend at the USDAA trial in San Marcos. We had been chasing our last Q which had to be a Snooker Super Q for 10 months. I had just decided to give up! Then Sunday, in our Snooker course, instead of asking Pogo for four 7s in the opening I picked a course that flowed well for his skills and we finished the course! But only took one 7, one 5 and two 4s, so I knew we were well below all the four 7 dogs and there was no way we would be in the top 15%. I notice Jane, looking at the score sheet and she looks up and motions to me that I’m in second place. I suddenly got weak in the knees. There were still at least 10 more dogs to run. It was a long wait to see if we would get completely knocked out and a lot of “Oh, Darn, too bad” (with an uncontrollable smile) as each competitor knocked a bar or went off course. We ended up 3rd Place out of all the 22” and 26” dogs.

Then, on Monday, I found out that both Pogo and Trixi had finished in the Top Ten dogs for their breed in the country for NADAC agility.

My dogs rock!


Friday, February 5, 2010

Sleeping Beauty

The new goal for each tournament will be to see if we can snap a pic of Duwain snoozing.

Shouldn't be too hard.

Duwain and Xero January 2010, Huntsville

Duwain and Xero, August 2009, Huntsville

Duwain and Eris, sometime 2009, Hutto, TX
Don't worry though - if we catch other members in the act of napping, we'll post pics of that too . . .

We'll be honest . . . the wine bottle was planted. Surprisingly, Denise didn't wake up when we did it.

Better watch out! We may have to graduate from just pictures to permanent marker . . .

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Good Times! January 30-31 Tournament

After a long fun weekend, DR! is home and resting their flyball muscles (you know . . . the muscles you only know you have because they ache after a tournament?). It was a successful tournament in Huntsville and co-hosts Electric Dawg and Flat Out Flyers did a spectacular job. Good times were had all around.

Both 4 Dogz with Ballz and Dogz in Da Hood took 2nd place in their respective divisions.

Highlights include:

  • 4 Dogz getting GOOSED by LSR. Not once but twice.
  • Karl finishing his provisional judging hours and applying to become an APPROVED judge.

  • Duwain's BC, Velvet, made up for the last Huntsville visit (where she decided playtime was not over and took a tour of the fairgrounds). She ran several full runs in warm-ups. Lookin' good Velvet, lookin' good.
  • Kim boxloaded for the first time in 11 years of flyball! Though difficult to resist, she made sure not to pet the dogs as they ran by and there were no flags on our boxloader!
  • Trixi ran sub-6 line-to-line the majority of the tournament. She even has a new PB of 5.5. Perhaps Kim will be boxloading more often???
  • Ben ran Ryp on 4 Dogz for multiple races. After a couple of near collisions with Jenn & Hawkeye (running anchor tends to make you forget there are dogs behind you), he found his spot, got some good passes AND allowed Jenn to see for the pass.
You may ask why I wasn't running Ryp for these races? It is because REMIX made her debut and earned her FD & FDX! Aside from a couple of no-balls due to excitement, she did great for her first time in the lanes AND first time over her height of 9".


  • Sandra - Flyball Photographer Extraordinaire - launches RuetzDogz. With a brand new camera (Sandra only got it the day before), a crazy huge zoom lens, low light settings and fast action, she was able to get the hang of it in no time and snap some great action shots! Unfortunately for her, this means we will be bugging her for photos of our dogz in action!!!
Overall it was a great tourney. The Hoodz dogz and 4 Dogz ran well and were solid. We're looking forward to March with the Misfitz team.