Trials, tears and joy

Agility trial, Wills Park, Alpharetta GA, 2002

Shortly after Macy’s 11th birthday, I had to stop doing agility with her. She had always been my favorite athlete, as her drive was non stop. My other hounds had fun and I loved agility training with them for exercise and enrichment, but they were all easily distracted or had too high of a prey drive for me to trust to compete (my training shortcoming, not theirs).  So, when Macy fell after trying to land a jump a couple of weeks after this video was taken, I was devastated. I truly walked back inside crying, as I knew this was it for our usual agility workouts and because there was something seriously wrong with her legs.

I turned to my wholistic vet for help and began regular acupuncture treatments for her, along with administering homeopathics daily to help stave off the neurological deterioration.  Walking and moving about progressively became more and more difficult for her, and I saw that she was upset mentally from the hinderance. I’ve tried to do my best to find activities that she can still do, like frisbee, swimming and low impact agility, to keep her mind sharp and legs moving.  This past summer took it’s toll on her though, and through the mosquitos and sweltering FL heat, we found ourselves indoors way too much. She seemed to become resolved with just lying about, even though I could tell that she was terribly restless emotionally in having to do so. I worried that she’d just lose interest in everything.

After a couple of really bad weeks, I returned to my vet to see how we could further her treatment. Since then, Macy has almost been taking more supplements than me, and that is a lot!  Well – it seems to be working.  Over the last couple of weeks, she has been much more stable on her feet. She shakes her vigorous shakes on the slick tile and doesn’t fall.  She leaps out the door for dinner with such force that you’d think she hasn’t eaten in days.  She’s totally been in my face all week wanting to do stuff and has not been lagging in our walks at all.

I pulled out the agility tunnel for her over the weekend, as she always loves to show off and that she did.  She was running through it with dancing eyes and bounding to me for her rewards.  So today I didn’t feel like pulling the tunnel in and out of the dirt since it was getting dark quickly, but I wanted to get her doing something – too much spare time and restless energy staring at me working!  I thought she’d be satisfied just doing a few weave poles (which she hadn’t even been able to do when her hind legs were so unstable).  She bounded through the weaves like a pup half her age. Back and forth, she showed off, eyes dancing, eager for praise and treats.  I tried to move on to a bit of time with the frisbee since no other obstacles were available. Nope, she wanted nothing to do with that. As I watched her kicking around with ease, I decided to test the waters with a very low jump. Oh ya, that’s what she wanted!  With much hesitation I relented and sent her around several jumps – she cleared them each time! Not quite as graceful as in her youth, but she did it and did it with such happiness that I couldn’t tell her not to. Even when I said time’s up, she stood in the yard staring at me waiting for more as she always used to do.  I love this sweetheart so much. Happy almost 13 years my hard working girl!!!!  And thank you so much Dr Cannizzaro.