Our Therapy Visit

On Tuesday, we took Jack up to Fort Collins to have the biomechanical assessment done. It was amazing!!! Sasha took a video of him and assessed his back to make sure it was not a skeletal problem (it is not). His roaching could be due to just growing, but we are not going to chance it. He also is not driving off his back legs as much as she would like to see - all related to core strength. So, we have 2 core exercises and 1 core stretch to do daily with Jack - starting off at the beginning. He is not liking the "sit ups" and looks the other way and pretends that we are not there, so hopefully that will improve. I will let her know in a week how we are doing and will go back up in either 2 or 4 weeks to be reevaluated and get some new exercises for him. Now, if we can just get him to do his sit ups......

Terry-All Kennel Club, 04/10/2010 and 04/11/2010

Terry-All, Adams County Regional Park --I was not really looking forward to this set of shows. On the bright side, Jack is having a growth spurt - so he is growing (yeah!). But, on the down side, he is like a teenager where none of his parts really fit right now. So, our goal was to just have fun, which I think we were very successful at. The judge on Sunday even commented on what a great time it looked like Jack was having and that was the most important thing at his age.

We participated in the "B" match on Friday. Jack, being the only Boxer there, advanced into the working group round and took 3rd!!!

For our actual shows, we were the only Boxer entered in the 12-18 month dog class, so we did get first both days (the judge did not actually have to award us the ribbon at all - so we will take it). But, that is as far as we got. But, cannot win Winners Dog if you do not enter and play with the big boys. At least we got to go into the ring twice.

Some great mentors (thanks Pat and Butch!) gave me some amazing advice with Jack and some things that need to be fixed. Jack is rounding up his back ("roaching") when we are gaiting, so I think we are going to look into having a biomechanical movement analysis done so that we can get some exercises to help this out. Or, it could just be a weird growth thing that will go away on its own, but not really that patient to wait that out as a what if.

But, some thoughts on this whole thing after doing it 6 months: It is so much harder than it looks. The technical aspects and the little things are very tough to learn and put into practice. It is frustrating with a steep learning curve and I have to laugh that I am seriously going to put my dog into a therapy program to help with his top line. To anyone outside this sport, I am sure that sounds crazy that I would do that. But, it is all in search of that purple ribbon. I am still waiting......I will make sure that one day Jack will be the one people will hate to see walk into a show because they know he is going to be the one that wins. It may take a little longer since I am new handler, but even the great handlers had to start somewhere, so time to work on fine tuning and get back out there for our next shows.

Plus - attended my second Boxer Club of Colorado meeting today - now I can officially apply to join.


Below: Match - Adult Working Group



Below: Winners Dog Competition