17/07/2022
In my last post, on the Novel litter’s 11th birthday, I was quite excited about Aslan competing in the Master class at the Rally National Championship (RNC) and debuting in Open Obedience a week later.
Welllll, things didn’t go so well for us at the RNC. Our first run of the day was the absolute worst run of Aslan’s entire Rally career, and only his second Rally NQ ever. A friend had recorded our run, and she commented that something might be wrong with him because he didn’t seem to be acting himself. As I watched the video, I didn’t see anything physically wrong, but he was acting very nervous, which was unlike him. While it is a difficult venue for a lot of dogs, he had been there twice before, and I couldn’t think of any reason for him to be acting out of sorts.
Our second run received a qualifying score, but it was not our best run, and by that point, I could tell that something was definitely wrong, as he did not want to sit, and it was clearly uncomfortable for him to do so :-(
I contacted my vet, who graciously squeezed us in last week, and she discovered two issues going on:
(1) He needed his a**l glands expressed (I could tell he already felt MUCH better after that!).
(2) The vet felt that there was something going on in Aslan’s lower back. The x-rays looked much better than she expected for his age and pain reaction, so he either tweaked something or had a muscle/soft-tissue injury of some sort. He's on meds and restricted activity for 14-21 days. (Obviously, I pulled him from Friday’s Open debut). After that, if he's acting normal again, I can ease him back into running & jumping to assess if he can still compete in regular or preferred, or if he should be retired.
The strange thing is that he seemed perfectly fine before we drove to the RNC that morning. We warmed up in the training garage for about 5 minutes before we left, and absolutely nothing seemed off. After thinking about it (okay, obsessing about it), I think I figured out what may have happened…
I keep a rubber-backed bathmat in the dogs’ car crates to keep them from slipping, but inevitably, every dog digs them up and kicks them out of the way. And, as usual, Aslan did the same when we left. I now wonder if he slipped and hurt his back when I went around a curve or turned a corner. Heck, I can tweak my back or neck just putting my socks on in the morning , so I can see how a slip might cause an injury.
And then I think it may have been aggravated because of his stupid owner (that would be me :-(). Wherever we go to trials, the dogs are always crated on matting or turf. But at the RNC, the crating area is a hard floor, and it never occurred to me to bring something extra soft and cushy in addition to his normal crate mat (which he also kicks out of the way ), so lying in his crate on that hard floor all day probably exacerbated any pain he was already feeling. My poor boy :-(
It makes sense, if he was feeling a little "off" when we got there, that he was nervous in his first run. Then, after the long break between classes, he would have been hurting for his second run, resulting in him not wanting to sit.
Primo pads are already on order for the car crate and his trial crate, so I will not fail him again
