Happy Birthday-Happy Birthday

It's right around Strummer's 1st birthday and today seems good a day as any to declare it (since he's a rescue I don't know the exact date). He graduated from Advanced Beginners obedience class tonight but you'd never know it. He's currently having a full blown puppy fit, tearing around the living room full tilt, growling & throwing his toys in the air, doing 4 legged leaps onto the couch then launching off again only to start right over. I really should stop him but I'm laughing too hard, which only eggs him on. One thing we didn't cover in class-how to stop him from taking my shoes hostage. We're constantly in hostage negotiations-drop my shoe and I'll give you a bickie...no, you drop the bickie and I'll give you your shoe...and on it goes. I always win but he always gets the bickie so who really won in the end?

I've started teaching him stupid, hokie little tricks (roll over, sit up & beg, gimme five, etc.) and he's hilarious. He's still in the beginning stages of learning but he was amusing his foster mom today with his little routine. He's coming along well with the agility flatwork, going around trees when I send him, turning away from me on a hand signal, getting better with his sit & down stays. I was able to put him in both a sit and down stay and go out of sight in class tonight for the first time and he did great. Just 2 weeks ago simply turning my back to him while he was in a sit or down stay was stressing him out so that was some great progress. He's such a fun dog, I'm really fortunate to have gotten him.

As for my knee, it's coming along o.k. Walking feels almost normal though I still can't straighten my leg all the way. The doctor said it may be months until it's totally healed. The P.T. started me jogging on a trampoline and doing 'jumps' on the Home Gym weight trainer thingy. She's going to let me try running on the treadmill on Friday to see if I'll be o.k. for an agility class this weekend. I'm pretty sure I'll be fine. I entered a trial 3 weeks away in Albuquerque so I need to start practising again. I had decided to stay away from the agility field until I could run properly because it stressed the dogs out too much but I think I'll be o.k. for running short sequences in a class by the weekend. I'm still a ways away from being able to run run but I think I'm going back to the pool next week since I finally feel like I can push off the wall. I haven't been to the pool in a couple of weeks because it was way too frustrating so it's not going to be pretty when I hit the water again. I'm bored of the bike trainer and the strengthening exercises but oh well. Despite the gimpiness, my knee feels so much better without the cyst, esp. now that I can walk somewhat normally again. Funny, it's been so long since I've run (and even longer since it's felt good to run) that it seems like I barely miss it. Hopefully I won't turn into too much of a slug living this life of rehab leisure.

My World Gets Ever Smaller

No posts for a while, I've been cranky about not being able to go out and play in the nice weather. The physical therapist put the kabash on my outdoor bike rides, restricting me to the trainer. And it's working so I can't argue. Nonetheless, I was in a foul mood this weekend, riding the trainer in the mid-60 degree weather on my deck, watching all the runners and cyclists cruising by and drooling at the mountains in the distance. A cyclist waved at me as he passed and I restrained myself from flipping him off. Of course he was just being friendly, no need to inflict my foul mood on the general public.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been battling with the list owners/members of Boulder's spin off from the national Freecycle group, called 'RecycleBoulderValley'. For those unfamiliar with the concept, freecycling is a list on 'yahoogroups' where you can offer your crap up for free and people take it if they want. If you need stuff you get it for free and if you have excess crap you can dump it. Everyone wins and the landfills get filled up a little less quickly. The original Boulder group split from the national Freecycle group so they could make up their own rules. Most people followed this split including me because I couldn't be bothered trying to find the proper Freecycle group. So the splinter group has around 3700 members, the Freecycle group only 700 or so. Anyway, RecycleBoulderValley started a poll to see if they should start offering pets up for free on their list. It sounds like a nice idea in theory but the problem is that it's a disaster for the animals. Only 20% of animals offered for free end up in a loving, permanent home. The rest, well, it's not pretty. They get sold to research labs or dog fighters for bait dogs. Or they end up with owners who are unwilling/unable to care for them properly, including animal hoarders with mental problems, or sickos who are just outright abusive. Never mind that there's no guarantee the new owners will spay/neuter their pets so the rescues/shelters will have to bear the brunt of all the unwanted litters.

Unfortunately, the 'animals for free' vote is winning right now. If it passes, I'll leave the group, I just couldn't stomach staying and watching the ensuing carnage. It seems bizarre to me that I should end up boycotting an otherwise great group but there you go. I boycott about a zillion scumbag companies and businesses but this seems crazy. But I'm not budging.

If anyone out there would like to vote on this matter you can go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RecycleBoulderValley/ , join the group and go to the 'polls' section on the web to vote. If you're not a member of 'yahoogroups' you'll have to join but it's free and easy. The poll closes March 10.

As for my training, I'll spare you the excruciating details of my rehab. It's boring even to me.

Celebrate

I hate holidays. Nobody tells me what I have to celebrate and when I have to celebrate it dammit! Maybe I don't happen to feel very thankful on Thanksgiving day or terribly patriotic on the 4th of July. The flip side of this is that I do like to celebrate things when I sincerely feel the emotion behind it so today is Happy Trails Day. Most days are happy trails days really but some days just feel more joyous than others and today was one of those days-partly because it was my first time on the bike since knee surgery two weeks ago and who knows how long before that, partly because last week we were freezing our asses off with record breaking cold, snow & -25 degree wind chills and today it was sunny & in the 60's, and partly because I freshened up my mp3 player with some new tunes but mostly because it just felt like one of those awesomely special days and I felt like celebrating it. I wasn't on my bike very long, just 45 minutes and a whopping 5 1/4 miles but it was pure heaven on wheels. The doctor gave me a strict talking to about not overdoing things in my recovery or I'd be back in his office sharpish and told me to make sure everything I was doing felt ridiculously easy so I couldn't be out nearly as long as I wanted but maybe that made the time I had out all the sweeter.

We took the dogs down to the Rez. so they could run like loons chasing their toys on the nice soft sand. Strummer is turning out to be a frisbee dog which isn't really a great thing since frisbee chasing is an ACL tear waiting to happen but he's obsessed so I've been trying to throw the thing as safely as possible which is problematic since I suck at frisbee. It was wonderful watching them all run their butts off, tongues hanging down to their knees in the warm sunshine. During the summer months the Rez is shut to dogs so we have to enjoy the beach as much as we can the next couple of months.

Later in the afternoon I took Strummer to a park by my house to practice some agility flatwork and his sit and down stays. I started out having him do simple U-shaped turns then worked on front crosses and luring the turn away from me for the rear cross. I taught Lola rear crosses that way and it worked great, (Cody just naturally understood rear crosses, I never had to train him). Then I tried getting him to do the U turns around a tree which was meant to mimic a jump standard. I 'm hoping to train a lot of basic behaviors away from the equipment so he can be nice & solid with it when I introduce the equipment. First impressions are very important for dogs and I want everything to be easy & positive. I'm still working on getting him to drive really fast to a target before I start his contact training. Right now he's trotting over to the target but I want him really running for it before I go any further.

I pulled my entry fee from the NADAC trial this weekend and I'm very glad I did. I'm in no way ready for that kind of running. I've been to the pool a couple of times for 20-25 minutes and the swimming was fine, I swim with my knees locked anyway so I could barely feel anything in my knee but I could work the other leg muscles. Only problem is I can't push off the wall which makes keeping up with intervals in masters difficult. 30-40 minutes of walking seems to be my limit but my knee improves so much each day I'm hoping to increase that next week. Weather looks great for biking next week so maybe I can sneak a little ride in somewhere. Also going to increase my time in the pool and start physical therapy next week so I can get a better idea of how deal with this rehab. The doctor was good with the cutting and he answered all my post surgery questions well but wasn't too good about providing a specific recovery plan.

Spare Us the Cutter

First off, thanks to all who wished me well both publicly and privately. Even though I knew I shouldn't, it was hard not to get panicky and stressed out as the surgery date approached.

I'll spare you all the gory details of my surgery. I nearly had a client of mine puking on the phone so I don't think I'll go into it anymore. In short, they took out the cyst which the surgeon described as 'enormous'. There was NO meniscus tear and the cartilage damage behind my patella was not nearly as bad as he thought it would be so finally some good news. I haven't had any knee pain to speak of and I can walk slowly, each day seems to be a big improvement from the day before. I went for a spinal instead of general anesthesia and so far I'm glad for that though I have been having some headaches/VERY mild nausea which are normal side effects, supposedly. I'm o.k. when I lie down but working at the computer brings them on so I've been trying not to spend too much non-work time on the box. They seem to be diminishing so hopefully I'll soon be done with that. It's pretty amazing to think I could go through all that and have so little pain. I took one Vicodyn the night of the surgery as a precaution in case the pain hit while I was sleeping but I didn't really need it. Sheesh, I've felt WAY worse after a marathon or even a long training run. Sort of makes you want to rethink your hobbies sometimes.

I Wanna Be Sedated

I actually go to say that today. Mmmmm, drugs are good. Serjuryyy izzz fuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnn!!!

Cease & Decyst

I can't ever have normal things wrong with me. Turns out I have an enormous cyst on my knee, probably a result of bearing all my weight on that leg for so long while recovering but could be from something else. There's probably a meniscus tear too, apparently the two often go hand in hand, but the cyst is so big it's blocking the view of the meniscus. So the doctor strongly suggested surgery, said that's what she'd do if it was her knee. The other option is to have it drained by having a huge needle stuck in my knee but she didn't recommend it and to be honest I wasn't thrilled with that visual. On the plus side (if there is one here) they're going to squish me into the surgery schedule so I can go in next Monday and hopefully be recovered enough for my agility trial 2 weeks later.

I have to admit, I'm a little freaked out. The doctor assured me it's no big deal but I've never had surgery before. I don't do well on pain med's. and I'm SICK of being in recovery mode. I was so sure the MRI was going to rule OUT surgery not tell me I needed it for sure. I suppose it's not really a big deal, I should just put on my big girls pants and deal with it. And Jonny has assured me that there's lots of ice cream involved in knee surgery recovery.

In Limbo

I had an MRI done on my knee and I'm waiting to meet with the doctor on Tuesday to see the results. They gave me a disk with the pictures and they're pretty gross but I have no idea what I'm looking at so I'll just have to wait. After meeting with the physical therapist I decided it would be worth it to see how bad the tear is. My insurance is giving me hassle about PT, only agreeing to pay for 4 weeks instead of the 6 weeks the doctor prescribed so I don't want to waste it then find out I need surgery. I'm hoping the MRI will rule out surgery but if I need it for sure I want to know now. So for now, no running or cross country skiing which is driving me crazy because the mountains got slammed with snow again. It's the best snow season they've had in a long time and I'm missing all the fun. My knee is having good days and bad days though so I don't want to make it worse. I went to masters twice this week, had a 2 hour ride on my mountain bike yesterday (easy trails, I avoided all big hills and spun up the small ones), a 1 1/2 hour walk this a.m. with the dogs but that was about it aside from some walking this week with the dogs. Don't know if there's much point logging it all at this point.

The PT appointment was very weird. She did all kinds of strength tests and decided my knee problems are likely coming from a weakness in my S.I. joint in my back that was likely caused from the impact of the car crash. She sold me a brace for my back that supports the S.I. joint and keeps everything in place so the ligaments etc. can heal and I can have some stability to be able to handle the physical therapy exercises. I have to wear this stupid thing all the time even while sleeping and while it seemed to really help the first few days I've become somewhat skeptical. The whole thing's been incredibly frustrating, I'm ready to be done with the effects of this stupid accident already.

On the upside, agility training has been going well. Cody and Lola both did great at course run throughs yesterday. They were fast, focused and having a blast. Cody was dancing on his front feet in anticipation of his turn, very cute. It was a jumpers course and I let them run, ignoring all mistakes and working on the trouble spots in smaller sections later. We had some clean runs and some not so clean runs but it was all a blast.

Strummer had his first agility session today and he loved it. I introduced him to the tunnel, chute, tire jump and Buja Board. Jonny came with to help since Strummer doesn't have much of a sit-stay yet. He held him in front of one end of the tunnel while I teased Strummer with his tug toy then ran to the other end of the tunnel and called him through. Strummer came flying through the tunnel and I'd reward him with a game of tug. A couple of times he didn't go through the tunnel but rather ran straight to me. When that happened I walked him back to the other end and we tried it again with him closer to the tunnel entrance. This rarely happened though, he was nearly 100 percent successful which is what I wanted. We did a similar thing for the tire and chute with Jonny restraining him by the chest on one side and me teasing him and calling him to me on the other. I started with the chute rolled up a bit and held it open for him then extended it all the way still holding it open then started dropping it on him when he was nearly out. He wasn't phased at all and came blasting out looking for his tug toy.

The Buja board was the most fun because I wanted to shape that rather than lure him like I was doing on the other obstacles. I used a clicker and food treats (kibble and pieces of string cheese) so I could get more repetitions in. I stood by the Buja board and waited for him to take in interest in it. When he looked at it I clicked and gave him a treat. He soon was taking much more interest in it, touching it with his nose then his paws, getting a click, treat and enthusiastic 'yay' from me each time he touched it. Soon he was racing over it, banging it with his paws and having the time of his life. The purpose of the Buja board is to get the dog used to his feet moving under him and the noise of the board hitting the ground so he won't be scared when he starts to learn the teeter. Lots of dogs are freaked out by these things and Lola was one of them. It took me a full year to teach her the teeter and it was a painstaking process. Thankfully Strummer doesn't seem to have the same fears so I'm hoping that his teeter training will be easier.

At 10 months he's too young for jump training and I need some more foundation work with him before he can start contact training so that's the extent of his agility training for now but I was pleased with how it went. I also started remembering how much time it all takes. But Strummer's going to be a lot of fun to train so it'll be worth it.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Went to masters on Monday (2200 yards) and my knee was still bothering me so decided to rest until my doctor's appt. today. Turns out I likely have a meniscus tear/inflamation which is just what I suspected I had. No cross country skiing or running for 2 weeks, 6 weeks of physical therapy and I can bike and hike on hills. I didn't ask about swimming but I assume that's o.k. I love biking and the weather's been pretty cooperative but it's hard to find time with my new dog situation. I pretty much need to take a dog to work with me every day and exercise them on my lunch hour which leaves spinning on the trainer at night as my weekday option. Even so it's still hard to find time with Strummer running around crazy all night. I think for the next few months I need to focus on his training and lay off the tri stuff a bit, at least until my knee heals up. I'm going to try for 2-3 nights of swimming, cycling on Sat. & Sun. and some walking thrown in on my lunch hours and before work to exercise the dogs.

I've decided not to go to Kansas for the USDAA trial but to go to Albuquerque in April for a different USDAA trial. I'm just too nervous about blowing too much money on entry fees and getting blasted with a blizzard. Of course, there's probably more chance of a snow storm in Colorado in April but I'll risk it.

I have a deadline at work that's been keeping me busy so I'll have to post more later once I finish this project up.