Another update and Gracie's practice!

We woke up this morning to ice covering everything outside, and we mean everything!

It was beautiful, but Mum wasn't too happy, because the first thing she saw was me sliding across the patio when I went out for morning potties. "Easy!!!!!!!," was all that came out of her mouth. "No more injuries, please!!!!!"

There is still ice over every thing, so we're being extra careful.

We headed out later in the day to Gracie's agility practice at the training center. She did great today, was very focused, only sniffed once, made all her DW contacts, and had some nice independent weave entrances.

Mum took me along for a couple of reasons, even though I wasn't running today. One, because I had an appointment just after practice with my soft tissue specialist; and two, because she wanted me to go back to the scene of the crime and be comfortable. I came out of my crate at the training center shaking a little, but was soon near to my old self; trying to pull, offering behaviors. So Mum trotted me around, sent me to my target and played a few games with me.

Then Mum bundled me up in my crate to keep me warm during Gracie's practice.

One of the challenges with Gracie is that she's a whole different dog from practice to trails. At practice she's pretty together, at trials she gets over the top excited and looses her brain, and sometimes just stresses to the max. If Mum can cue her earlier during trial runs, Gracie does pretty good. But the minute Mum is a split second late, Gracie is off doing her own thing.

So Mum worked some rear cross with Gracie today, and some more independent weave entrances and exits. More independent obstacles with Gracie means that Mum can get her cues out way earlier and Gracie will know what to do. So they focused on that today.

After Gracie's practice we headed to my soft tissue specialist. She checked me over thoroughly; and found a few things. She thinks that I may have strained my quadricep (thigh), probably becaused of soreness and stiffness in my lumbar region. My stifle (knee) is a bit sore and a wee bit weak. And I have soreness in my shoulder (but that's been going on for a while now).

She performed some pokes and prods, and even gave me something I haven't had before - color light therapy, which some folks call color acupuncture, interesting stuff. I have absolutely no soreness or strain of my iliopsoas (which is amazing news, those things are tough to heal). And I don't have any swelling left at all.

I have new exercises to do - kittie stretches for my back, push ups for my quads, along with all the other regular stretching exercises I do. I'll be getting more chiro adjustments, and working on my exercise ball and treadmill. And I get heat to keep me relaxed.

I'm already feeling so much better. Last time I had a muscle pull it took me four weeks to feel as good as I do already in four days. So we know this isn't nearly as bad as last time, thank DOG!

My prognosis is excellent! And I may even be back running agility in practice in about four weeks. May even make it back in time for the next USDAA trial first weekend in February - guess we'll see.

So we are celebrating a bit tonight with some peanut butter, Mum added chocolate to hers :)