The Days of Johann, an agility dog!

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Another way to say...Happy New Year!

Rehab?

You may remember that I had something go wrong at the USDAA trial - guess it was about a month ago now. I wasn't limping or anything, but wouldn't stretch out before my run, came out of my crate shaking like a leaf. Mum took me home right away and checked me out. I spent the day in the corner of the living room and wouldn't come out.

Over the next few days I had a vet check, saw my chiro (my back and hip areas were out), and my soft tissue specialist. And in a matter of a week and a half I was acting completely normal.

So the other night at the New Year's Eve, Eve agility party. Mum ran me a little (no frames, no weaves) to see if I was looking OK. I didn't do too bad, not speedy, but not slow either. My chiro happened to be there and saw some kind of a hitch in my giddy-up when ever I ran - whatever that means :) She thinks she saw an extra step or hop from my left back leg. Mum still hasn't seen anything, and I'm acting incredibly normal. I'm going in for another chiro adjustment next week. But in the meantime, I'm doing my zoomies, chasing Gracie and the kitties, being my usual ornery self, and doing my rehab work.

My rehab, just like last January when I had my iliopsoas pull, consists of treadmill, ball work, stretching, strengthening body work and massage. We also do a lot of that anyway to keep me healthy, which is probably why my recovery is so quick this time - all that stuff really paid off for an injury prone dog like me. Wish I wasn't like this, but I've had a lot of stuff happen to me in my young years, so I need help keeping fit.

We've had a lot of requests to show the work we do, not only on the treadmill, but on the exercise ball, and stretching. You may remember my video on stretching, and the vid where I learned to run on the treadmill. For strengthening work, I'm doing a lot of begs (working up to holding it for 90 seconds - I'm already up to a little over 30 secs. in just a few days). Also doing some controlled stair work, going from a beg to stand and down again, things like that.

Now that I'm in rehab mode, we are taking it easy on the treadmill, not so fast and not so long - you'll see in the vid. We are adding in more incline to my treadmill work this time, to help build muscle mass. And since I may be in somewhat of a fragile state, we are taking it kind of easy on the ball work too - that's when Mum puts the ottoman near to help me get on and off.

Mum has rehab'ed me now 3-4 times in my four years of life. All she needs is one of those POS systems, bottle this rehab plan and she'd make a killing! If you've never rehab'ed a dog before, it's not easy. It takes a lot of dedication, commitment, money and time (sometimes months to a year), all this that you'd rather be doing play, training and running agility. And it takes knowledge, which many times you have to seek out and accumulate on your own, because there just isn't a lot of information out there.

And you can only hope through the process that you are doing the right things to help your dog. Many times injuries are incredibly difficult to diagnosis, even for the most experienced veterinarians and specialists. So you see who you can, and constantly search for answers, do the rehab work, until one day all is hopefully well again. But Mum wouldn't do anything but.

So here's a vid of some of my treadmill and exercise ball work, hope you enjoy!

A few of my goals for 2009...enjoy!

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

This will get your New Years off on the right paw!

The prizes are out the door!

Mum spent the day today and yesterday getting all the prizes out to the winners of my Howling Howliday Giveaway. We think they are gonna like 'em!

We had to stay in our crates and wait for Mum to finish packing up the boxes, 'cause all the toy and treats and foods were just too tempting, and we were getting in the way. Heck even my kittie bros wanted in on the act, darn cats!

One surprise - when we opened up Rachael Ray's Nutrish gift, we found a super cool notepad and picture frame in the holiday stocking, along with her treats and other goodies. Don't have a clue how we missed it the first time, but we had a lot of stuff coming to the house. Merlin is going to like it!

So once all the goodies were out the door, Mum headed out to the post office. Dogs aren't allowed in our post office, otherwise I woulda been there to put my paw seal of approval! Hope all the winners enjoy their prizes and thanks again to all the great sponsors. It was a super fun contest and hope we get to do it again, and again, and...

Monday, December 29, 2008

Gracie vs the Babble Ball and other stuff!

Mum held out one of Gracie's Christmas presents until she was feeling better and could get some video. Well, Gracie just loves her Babble Ball! Check this out...

Mum has to take it away from her after a little time, 'cause she'll get pretty wild, but she just loves her new toy!

It's been five days now and Mum is still sick. We're getting pretty sick and tired of it! And we're getting a good experience of cabin fever. She went to the Chiro today and got an adjustment to help and it did. Then she headed over to Whole Foods and loaded up on some herbs and homeopathics - they are already helping. And she bought herself a neti pot. She says it was kind of weird to use in the beginning, but really made her feel better, for a little while anyway.

We sure hope she feels better by tomorrow night - the training center is having a get together and open practice and we both want to run (me at low height and no frame or teeter, until I'm fully better). We need the exercise!

And she needs to get better to get me started on my strengthening program so I'll be ready for the Feb trials! Tonight she worked with me on my ball a little after doing some stretching. But we are way behind schedule.

Did I tell ya Gracie went to agility practice last Wednesday without me? Yep, she did it again. And she did a fabulous job! Her first run was kinda wild and crazy, skipped a few jumps, bailed her DW contact. But she was still focusing on Mum and made it through the entire course - Mum just went on when Gracie skipped a few things. She ran again about three times, full courses each time and did super good. She bailed nearly all of her DW contacts, so Mum is thinking again of what do to with her DW; but they'll come up with something.

On one run Gracie had to do the weaves as the second obstacle and didn't want to take the time to stop and do them, but Mum made her and she did well. Super proud of my sis, Gracie, she's really starting to show her stuff.

Mum has been working some on updating our JohannTheDog.com website - and adding in lots of stuff that's on sale. Pretty good sales going on, so you may want to check it out. And we're hoping to get all the Howling Howliday prizes in the mail tomorrow. We're still gathering up a few of the gift certificates.

I'm sure you probably saw it, but if you haven't please be sure and read the Sport Illustrated ar ticle on the Vick Dogs. It a wonderful article and pretty unprecedented for SI - hoping that it will change a lot of minds about the state of the pittie! We found it very interesting - here's what SI thought about Pitties in 1987 and here's what they think in 2008. Maybe times are changing?

And we're sure you've probably seen it, but if not you've got to see this vid from CNN about the pup that shoplifted a rawhide bone in Murray, Utah the day before Christmas. Priceless!

Over on our Raise A Green Dog blog, Mum and I wrote up a year end post - The top 5 things you can do in 2009 to have a healthier, happier pup and help the environment at the same time! Check it out and get some ideas for your new year's resolutions :)

Being into the conditioning and stretching subject over my short life, I was interested to read a blog post and responses on The Adventures of the Miller Four Pack blog. Several folks outlining their strengthening, conditioning, and stretching programs for their dogs, agility and non.

I've also been re-reading Sarah Johnson's pdfs on Conditioning and Core Strenthening, part of Nancy Gyes' article series of wonderful articles on many things agility, good stuff!

If you've been wondering if the Tug It tug toy from Clean Run is working for some dogs with no interested in tugging before, check out this post from Agility Adventures. Chloe gets her tug on for the first time!

That's it for now...Mum's gotta go rest up. Hope you all are having a great holiday time!

Saturday, December 27, 2008

We had a great Christmas!

We had a great Christmas Day - hope you did too!

Mum, Gracie, Wolfie and Wiggy and I didn't open presents right away when we got up. I was all ready with my holiday bandanna, and I was getting pretty impatient.

Finally it was time! Mum gave Wolfie and Wiggy their presents first. They got a really cool cat scratcher with some catnip, and a couple of interactive toys. Gracie and I had to wait outside and give them some space to enjoy their presents for a little while.

These things took just a little too much time for them to enjoy, delaying the opening of my presents, humpf...

Then it was dog's turn, finally!

Mum gave us our bags and we went at 'em. I found a super cool little dinosaur stuffie and some other stuffies and treats in my bag - Zukes and Dr. Harvey's green tripe (my fav). Gracie found a couple of Planet Dog rubber toys and a couple of stuffies and treats in her bag (Lakse Kronch, her fav). Although yesterday Gracie enjoyed the wrapping bag much more than the toys. Sadly we aren't sure what happen

ed to the video of Gracie destroying her bag of presents.

After we mauled all the toys and wrapping bags, Mum opened up some of the treats for us - but like usual we had to work for them.

Here we are with all of our loot!

After a nice chicken dinner with marrow bone dessert - Gracie and I headed outside. It was a pretty nice and sunny day and we got to enjoy it, but the kitties weren't very happy we got to be in the great outdoors. They sat at the window and meowed up a storm!

Later in the afternoon, Mum started getting really sick - we think she has the flu. But yesterday was her worst day and she's already starting to feel better, although she's still running a fever. And all that coughing is keeping me awake at night!

It's getting warmer, so Mum thinks Gracie and I need a bath, it's been a while. Kind of a long while :) We have our new cleanser, now all we need are those super cool Grohe faucet attachments for our tub and we'll be good to go! Can't wait for those after bath zoomies - and I'm healthy enough to take it, yeah!

We had a super nice quiet Christmas. Having some friends over this weekend, and then a few quick trips to make to some friends, as well. Then Sunday we are resting up for the big New Year's. There's an agility party the night of Dec 30th at the training center!

Hope you all had a pawsome holiday!

Friday, December 26, 2008

And the winners are!

My first annual (hopefully!) Johann's Howling Howliday Giveaway is now history. The prizes are being assembled and will hopefully get in the mail first thing Monday - if all goes as planned.

I won't keep you waiting any longer...here are the winners!

1st Place goes to Merlin!