My Heart Is Breaking

My Macaroni Man is getting adopted tomorrow.... buy the most horrible person possible.

The rescue decided that the very day the radiologist called and told them that Mac's "suggested OCD" that was so small they couldn't see it and if he doesn't limp in the next two months it means he healed himself and will be able to compete in ANY SPORT without restriction, they decided to adopt him out to the only approved application that had come in for him.  That application happens to be from a woman who helped care for him when he lived at the golf course (the golf course that ruined him and wanted to have him PTS when he was limping instead of fixing him and had a 10 month old puppy 7 pounds overweight).

So my Mac.  My lovely Macaroni Man is going right back into the hell he came from.

And the rescue is fine with that.

Scratch the fact that I told them I finally found a SPORT home interested in him... but no, since they don't have any other applications in RIGHT NOW, they apparently don't matter.

I am so heartbroken.

I feel like I failed him.

Spread the Word! Border Collie looking for Forever Home, Amazing DISC DOG Potential!

So my foster dog is just about ready to start looking for his new home.  Mac (a.k.a. Macaroni Man) is just about 1 year old (born 12.1.11 I believe) and a purebred border collie.

He is 10-12 pounds overweight and hasn't fully grown into himself yet.  He has been limping due to a yet unknown shoulder injury/strain.  We are awaiting results on a serious set of radiographs (20 different views) that were sent out to a specialist Tuesday.  We do not believe anything is broken or that he has OCD (my personal opinion is that he is butt-high still in his growth stage combined with being significantly overweight is the cause of anything in his shoulder).  I have had  for almost 3 weeks (it will be 3 weeks on Black Friday) and his limp has peaked and is getting much less noticeable as he is losing weight and getting proper conditioning while slowly uping his activity level.  Today I barely noticed a limp in his movement.

The vet said he will probably have arthritis in that shoulder when he is older.  I feel he would not make a good flyball prospect or serious agility prospect as these activities put too much strain on the shoulders, but I'm sure he would love agility and be able to play in the preferred or elite classes with lower jump heights.  I have not yet taken him swimming, but he was training to be a goose dog in his former life so I imagine he would be awesome as a dock dog.

However, Mac's greatest thrill in life is chasing and catching a frisbee!  Mac LIVES for disc!  He is a natural and is already tracking and jumping for the disc.  He is very biddable (although he can be sticky-eyed and obsessive which might make freestyle training more challenging).  He is a natural toss and catch rockstar!  He learned to go around behind me to run out for the disc already.

Mac is wonderful with other dogs (although he does have a very in-your-face playstyle that some dogs may not appreciate.  Mac is also wonderful with people, he has never met a stranger (although I do NOT know how he is with children).  Mac has shown polite curiosity towards cats and small dogs, although he would probably chase if they ran.

Mac is available through Multiple Breed Rescue in Elyria, OH.  you can contact them through their website.  http://www.mbrohio.com/
Video of Macaroni's disc prowess:


Video of Mac playing at Daycare:


Video of Mac hanging out at Daycare:

Twice is Nice!

Was lucky enough to have not one, but TWO flyball practices yesterday!

First, our normal Saturday morning practice with our team.  My friend Megan, who is going to be traveling with us to the tournament in York, PA in December and running Trophy for me came to learn how to pass.  Now, this is a really difficult task considering our building is not tournament length and so she's going to have to relearn on the fly at the tournament, but she needed to start getting the overall flow of running a dog down.  Eventually she's going to be bringing her Aussie back to practice with us, so she needs to learn it anyway.

I've been working with a client's dog for several months to get him out of the hosue and work his little brain in adition to giving him extra exercise.  We're starting to have a break through with him.  He has already chained the jumps and loves to do jumping.  Now we are working on box work and taking a ball off the box while maintaining a nice turn.  I took some video for him mom to see since she can't be in the building while I work with him (he used to be able to work for me, but suddenly because worried/protective of her).  I've been working on boxturns for months, and finally got him to do a nice turn off the box with no ball (using his butt on the box and not being lazy) so now we're trying to add taking the ball off the box.  This dog is going to be a ball spitter, I can just see it, but that's another issue (chasing is also going to be another big concern of mine with him, but one problem at a time!)



Demo was getting some pretty crazy turns in and coming up high off the box.  I didn't take my video camera, so I can't replay it and see what was going on.  Pan was awesome, as usual, and since I had a prop in the whole time Trophy's turns were nice.  which brings me to my second flyball practice, which I'm calling "remedial box turn practice".


Remedial Flyball practice was held at another facility slightly closer to my house (by like 5 minutes) with a woman who runs her dogs on a team from Michigan.  Her dogs are amazing and fast, so I took Trophy to get a second opinion and some ideas on how to re-re-fix his boxturn and get him to engage his butt on the box.  He's gaining speed while his turn is getting worse. If I can fix his turn I just might have another dog who can run under 5 seconds and not retire early with shoulder issues (the latter being my primary concern).  She gave me an exercise to work with him to 1. build confidence taking the ball and 2, get him to lower his turn slightly on the box without using a jump board (as it's high with a prop and non existent without a prop).

I also took Demo along to analyze his turn and brainstorm what he was doing in the morning practice, which of course he wouldn't replicate.  Practicing at another facility was good for him though and instead we worked on getting his turn off the box to be snappier and also worked on making it tighter since he's such a looong bodied dog.

And in a non flyball related news, here is a picture of my Foster dog, MACaroni. Ain't he a handsome dude?  He has a shoulder injury we're still trying to figure out, so no flyball in his future, unfortunately.

Herding!

I just realized I never posted the videos from the BBCR Herding Clinic!!  So, the way the clinic works is in the morning they have a little presentation about the history of herding.  Then they bring all the dogs into the barn and they catch a sheep so the dogs can all go up one and a time and get a sniff.  Then they have 3 sheep in the arena, one dog at a time goes in and we turn them loose to see what they do.  One of the instructors is out there working the sheep and to run interference on the dogs if needed, lol.  Once all the dogs have a turn we break for a potluck lunch, and after than the dogs all get an afternoon session.

First up is Trophy.  Trophy had a PHENOMINAL first session.  He was focused, a bit too chasey, but he was taking direction from Jerry well.  The afternoon was a completely different story.  He had about 45 seconds of work, and then it was like this gigantic pile of sheep poo appeared out of nowhere, totally caught his attention and all of a sudden he was like "OMG!! There are turds EVERYWHERE" and he spent the next 3 minutes (until i dragged him out of the arena) eating crap and trying to roll in it.  *sigh*.  I'm going to take him back again next year to see how he does.




Next we have Demo.  When Demo went up to first smell the sheep, the sheep stomped a foot at him and he freaked out.  I don't think he was expecting a live animal or something.  So the first session was mostly him running away from the sheep. lol.  Second session he finally started to get the hang of it, but was more barkey/chasey/you-don't-scare-me-anymore than actual herding.  I may take him back next year to see how he does again.




Now, for a bonus, Ash and Cady's videos.  First is Ash.  He was, true to his nature, very nervous, but he showed some interest.




Cady, on the other hand, was very (what they call) sticky-eyed; where she would get control of the sheep's heads by staring at them, and then since she had them, not want to disrupt the balance by moving.  She did better in the afternoon.

Weekend Surprise!

This past Saturday was Buckeye Border Collie Rescue's annual herding clinic.  It's basically a day of instinct testing dogs for herding drive and ability.  There's a pot luck, and a whole bunch of BBCR dogs and their new owners can get together and meet up and hang out.

This year I got the surprise of my life as not just one, but FOUR of my previously adopted out foster dogs came to the clinic, including the two dogs who touched my heart the most: Ash, who is still called Ash and who I had as a foster for almost 6 months, and Vivid, who is now called Cady (pronounced like Katie) and who I miss and think about almost every single day of my life since I almost adopted her (until we found out she has hip dysplacia in one hip, it's a long story).  Also present were Frost, now called Dylan, and Guinness.

My beautiful Vivie. She will always be Vivie to me.
[Sorry to her moms if they are reading this (;]

So it's 5 minutes after everyone arrives and I'm BAWLING because Ash, who is a very timid pup, was doing his shy cowering thing until I got Trophy out of the truck.  The second Ash smelled Trophy he went into wiggly puppy mode, his tail came untucked from his body and he gave Trophy about a million kisses.  And I do mean I was bawling...  I don't know when I became such an emotional sissy, but there it is.  I cried like a baby.  And then Vivid's Cady's moms walk over and introduce themselves since I hadn't met them yet either.  I was a wreck.  A little bit of a warning would have been really nice. But it was SO GOOD to see these dogs again.  Fostering is very hard, especially with dogs who become so attached to like I did with Ash and Viv Cady.

Ashes with his favorite Trophy

I'm processing the videos of everyone herding, I'll post them when I'm done uploading. :)