When Your Heart Stops Beating

No one died!  I know that's a thought that may have crossed your mind reading the title.

I did, however, have a true moment of terror this morning.

I let Qwill, Shiner, Trophy, Demo and Eevee outside this morning to take pictures before breakfast as Eevee is 3 months old today.  Then I realized I forgot my camera battery upstairs and went to retrieve it.  On the way back I freed Pan and Koda from my sister's room, and let the two of them and Baxter out to join the others.  No sooner had I opened the door and the three dogs thundered past at a million miles an hour I hear screaming.  I thought someone had run the puppy over,
so I'm scanning for a little red blob, and I see Qwill  looking crumpled, sitting hump-backed, not putting weight on his left leg and screaming a death wail that I never want to hear again so help me god.  I screamed for help and carried him inside which just made him scream harder.

My mom came over to help me look at him (she's a nurse) and I totally lost it. I started bawling and sobbing and some wailing of my own.

This is my Qwillyman.  This is my heart and soul and he can't die.

He has been acting off all week, he stayed in his kennel Sunday night instead of following us up stairs and when he wouldn't come when I called I had to go get him.  My sister took him to the Chiropractor on Monday with Shiner and one of his hips was badly out of alignment.  So the first thing that popped into my head seeing him holding his paw up is that he had something like osteosarcoma and I was going to lose him.

I'm usually calm and level headed in case of emergency (we've had enough emergency vet trips with Trophy, after all) but Qwill is different.

My mom was able to manipulate his leg and he had pain in his shoulder area but she didn't think it was broken.  So we assumed broken rib.

We couldn't figure out how to move him without hurting him, and eventually he solved the problem by forcing himself to stand up.  He was able to walk to the car, although hunched and short strided, and we hurried him off to the vet.

The vet looked him over and said that they she didn't think anything was broken, just badly bruised. He may have a compressed disc in his spine/neck or a pinched nerve. They couldn't pin point a pain response in one area to warrant x-rays.

So now he is on Rimadyl and Tramadol for pain management and he is on strict crate rest for 5 days (although I let him come out and sleep on a dog bed with me because he's calm and not trying to run around).  We have a recheck on Tuesday.

I told him he's not allowed to scare me like this over a shared meal of McDonald's fries and chicken nuggets.

Spring Photo Drop

Already growing up too fast.

Everyone's playing Chase Demo (a favorite game) around here.

High flyin' Panda Bears

Tug wiff me!

She has her own little water bowl, but she wants to be a big dog.

'Spot' On

Trophy's contacts tonight were fantastic.  The one time he hit his contact a bit too enthusiastically on the A-frame and sort of popped right off (it was like he drove it in too deep and his butt wasn't quite ready to stop or something) he immidately got back on.  Yay for a proofed "Spot" behavior!  Weaves are still killing us >_<  need more hours in the day.

Need to win the lotto tonight so I can quit my day job and play with my dogs all day everyday.  Yeah, could you all just cross your fingers for my so THAT dream could come true? Thanks!

Pan was a bit crazy tonight again.  Silly section, curved tunnel in a corner, jump on the straight away and the table slightly off to the side.  Tire jump in line with the exit of the tunnel and the jump.  I'm expecting Pan to blast out of the tunnel and hit both jumps.  Instead she bypasses both jumps and springboards off the table.  Uberdork, that one.  My sister and I switched dogs the last run of the night.  I sent Pan into that tunnel (and my sister said she saw her ricochet off the WALL OF THE TUNNEL she single strided from her landing out of the tunnel all the way over that first jump.  AT LEAST 15 feet.  It looked like she was trying to clear the jump and land on the table straight from leaving the tunnel.  The girl has mad extension and some pretty sick bounce. :)

Had 5 dogs adjusted by the chiropractor tonight.  So I'm hoping to have 5 fluid dogs tomorrow.  Demo and Qwill's backs were pretty wonky.  Trophy wasn't actually that bad, although Pan's neck was pretty out of wack.  Shiner's very lower back was out (which doesn't surprise me) and his neck was off a bit.  We'll see how they feel.

 Trophy was feeling much better today.  His jumping was more fluid.  Encountered a problem with jumps perpendicular to contact obstacles, but I think I need to rev him up a bit more first.

Always learning, we are!

Signed up for an online class in Treiball basics.  They pushed back the start date to Friday April 6th. boo!  I'm SOOOOO excited for this class to start!

What We Do For Our Dogs

Tonight at Agility my sister was feeling better so I only ran Trophy.  He was not his normal spunky self.  He was even slow when the teeter sucked him on board while we were heading towards another obstacle.  My agility instructor said he looked like he wasn't extending his stride and he looked a bit roach backed.  My instructor is also a canine massage therapist, so she felt his spine and when she touched one vertebrae on his back I thought he was going to jump out of his skin he jumped up and flipped around so fast.  She worked on his muscles a bit to ease the spasms, but by the last run of the class he was knocking bars.

So now I have an ice pack and I'm trying to figure out the best way to ice his lower back...

I wasn't planning on having him adjusted at the chiropractor next week since I've been taking it really easy on them in their flyball training... but, well, now I am.

Amazing what people do for their dogs this day in age, isn't it?

Last month when the chiropractor was at our agility building adjusting dogs I took Shiner, Pan and Trophy.  Shiner has a completely smashed pelvis from a run in with a car before he was even picked up by the shelter.  He's also a little shit to the other dogs sometimes.  Ok, a lot of times.  He has been quite chipper and much more zoomie since I had him adjusted.  It's going to be a monthly thing for him.  I'm also hoping to take Qwill this time to see if it helps him and his broken butt.

Anyway, so no major disasters for us in agility, although Trophy wasn't fully in the game physically...  Pan, on the other hand, had her little setter head screwed on straight tonight.  She was amazing.  She was actually hitting and holding her contacts.  She was right with Tasha for directions to either the A-frame or the teeter (which were almost next to each other).  She was taking directions to correct jumps and she was just SOARing.  She's going to be a beautiful dog to watch run when she's finally to that point - her weaves are still a train wreck :).