Urban Tracking (148)

On August 22nd, Nadine and I met at Auburn Cinema for tracking. We'd just come out of 2 days of rain in the area, so the air was about as clean of grass pollen as it could get. Also the ground was damp, making for better tracking. We did article circles again.

Nadine set an article circle, the reverse of what we did the prior week. The hardest part for Gimme was the start. The start sock was right up next to the curb and the first leg went 90º from the curb. It was awkward to align with the leg, plus a turning away from a curb is the hard. It took Gimme a little bit to solve it, but then she did pretty darn good. There were lots of interesting articles to find.  She found them all - only needing help with one.  She noted it, but didn't stop to indicate, so she didn't think it was really an article.

We went straight from the article circle to a short track. Together they made up the approximate length we'd need for a TDU test. Now we just have to get the age back.

The first leg was an island serpentine and Gimme just motored right along. From there she turned out into the open and then turned again to go back to where the cars were parked. She did a nice job with all of this. It's good to see her getting her nose back.

Later we had a follow-up appointment with her chiropractor, Dr. Powell. He checked her over thoroughly and only found minor things to adjust. One interesting thing was a slightly jammed toe. It was on the same foot as the other jammed toes were, but this was an outside toe. He thinks it may have been stressed when she was favoring the sore toe/toenail. It wasn't much of a jam though, since it popped back so easily, she didn't even notice. It was nice to have an appointment with no ouches.

It's been a hard summer and it's quite a relief to be getting back to our normal, eh...

Urban Tracking (145) and chiropractor

On Thursday, July 25th, Nadine and I met at Game Farm Park for tracking practice.  Gimme had been really over-sensitive lately and had a meltdown the night before, so I wanted her to have an easy track. Plus I'd already decided to do some article circles to increase the value for articles. So, I asked Nadine to lay an article circle for Gimme. 

Normally I prefer for Gimme to go first on these exercises when all the girls will be running it, because it's a cleaner track. But Nadine had already run one of her girls and was about to run another when I arrived (bad traffic made me late), so Gimme was third to run the track. The track started at the top of the picture, to the left. There was a missing article (light blue dot), which was probably picked up by someone.  Gimme did spend a bit of time looking for it when she got to the middle of the leg, so she clearly knew there was supposed to be something there. 

Gimme was so enthusiastic and having fun, so I asked Nadine to lay an article zig-zag on the way back to the car and we ran it when it was less than ten minutes old. Gimme really raced through it.

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About ten days ago Gimme was lying on the couch beside me, then  squealed, ran out of the room and wouldn't come back. It happened twice. I had no explanation for why she was doing this, so I scheduled a chiropractic appointment. I planned to schedule one as a follow-up for the atlas vertebrae, so I just made the appointment earlier. By the time of our appointment, Gimme had two unexplained episodes of over-reaction during training. One was the time when she got upset during our RFE practice and the other was the meltdown the night before.

As it turned out, during the chiropractic treatment, Gimme screamed in pain when Dr. Powell extended her right shoulder. This has never been an issue before, so we were all taken by surprise. Gimme has a very long history with Doc; she gets a steady stream of peanut butter from her go toob the whole time he's working on her, so she's pretty certain he's the best person on the planet. Thus, she didn't hold it against him.  She was completely happy with his exam and treatment of the rest of her body. When he came back to the shoulder, her eyes got very big, but she was willing to let him do it. Fortunately the stuck shoulder had popped out during the stretch, so there was no more discomfort.

I made another appointment for next week, to recheck the shoulder, the atlas and the two toes. Sheesh - I've never seen her have stuff going on one right after another. She seemed fine on the shoulder up until today and now I notice her gait seems a little off. I'll see how it looks tomorrow, plus J'Anna will also be able to observe her. The chiropractor appointment isn't for another 8 days.

Anyway, this stuck shoulder certainly explains the phantom pains and her over-sensitivity lately. I hate this, since she doesn't know what causes it and so is afraid of the invisible boogey monster. I just want my girl to be comfortable, confident and happy again.

Gimme's wiggy-wagger

Wednesday
As I mentioned about the Parkour class last Wednesday, Gimme was unable or unwilling to pull her front feet up into the chair for "bacon".  This is unusual for her, so I was happy to know we had a chiropractic appointment scheduled for Thursday afternoon.

Thursday
During the RFE practice on Thursday, I noticed Gimme wasn't listening to cues well at all.  At the time I chalked it up to her false pregnancy, but in hindsight I'm sure it was also hard to focus through the discomfort.  Its a tribute to her tenacity how she keeps trying - she's always been very persistent.  At the end of the third session, I tossed a treat for Gimme and she flipped to get it and halfway fell.  From then to just before her chiropractic session, Gimme wouldn't or couldn't lift her tail or wag it normally.  It started to come back right before her appointment.  As I reviewed the video of the practice sessions, I see a number of stumbles and missteps by her rear.  I couldn't see it in real time because with her positioned next to me, this was happening behind my field of view.

Dr. Powell found she had one subluxation in her thoracic area and three in her lumbar region.  Her hips and other joints all seemed good.  He did a number of things to work on loosening up what was going on.  We discussed whether it was too painful to lift the tail or what.  He thinks the subluxations were interfering with nerve transmission, so she wasn't getting good info to her rear end for it to have normal strength and coordinated movement.  Based on what I see on the RFE videos, this seems likely.  At the end of the session, Gimme had her tail back to wagging normally.

By evening her tail was drooping again, so I cancelled our tracking for Friday morning, not wanting to have her out in the cold.  I contacted Doc about another session and he was able to fit us into an appointment for Saturday morning.  I hated having to wait when Gimme was so uncomfortable, but at least it wasn't too long. 

Saturday
I assumed some part of the adjustment didn't hold.  Instead Doc found the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae were just as he'd left them and the problem was now a tipped sacrum.  He explained it was likely her body had to readjust its balance after the Thursday adjustment and the sacrum just ended up out of alignment.  I've actually experienced this myself, so it made sense to me.  Gimme seemed to be tip top and initially there was a lot more tail action than usual, as if she was trying to make up for lost wag-time.

Tuesday
Unfortunately it didn’t last.  She started out okay in nosework class, but then I noticed her tail drooping.  It was so pronounced others could see it.  Gimme didn’t act like it was uncomfortable, like before.  However, at one point she saw Janice and ran over to see her and scooted her butt low to act silly and in doing so, I think she jammed her tail against the floor – which clearly was painful.  Poor baby.  I contacted Dr. Powell the next day and the earliest opening he had was Saturday morning. 

Thursday
Gimme's tail was coming back up and sometimes even looked normal.  Then during the evening, she came to put her feet next to me on the couch and yelped in pain and then wouldn't come near me.  She obviously thought *I* did something to make her hurt.

Saturday (today)
We met Dr. Powell this morning and he found a couple vertebrae in her lumbar region were jammed up again.  I asked him if there was anything I could do to help her body re-balance.  So, he taught me how to do the "tail pull" he does.  I was really surprised to learn how hard he pulls on her tail - dang near pulled my finger off.  Anyway, its also a lot to do with the pull angle and how I support her loin area, providing resistance, during the pull.  Gimme really seems to like it, so I hope it helps.

We  have a follow-up appointment on Thursday.  Cross your fingers for my munchkin to get back to normal...

RFE Practice (33)

Once I started seeing the videos other participants did for the MDSA tribute, I realized my instructions to J'Anna to keep the whole working space in the field of view made our video look very different.  So I decided to try again.  While I was at it, I wanted to add a bit more movement to my body. 

Session 1 video - I was surprised to see we worked for almost 12 minutes.  Gimme often has so much fun and is willing to work so much, that its hard to have a sense of passing time.  I see I did not do as well about not rewarding the bouncing-babe behavior.  As I said before, this is very much about changing my behavior before I change Gimme's.  Interesting she is doing better about it in some of our daily behavior.  I started with a little warm-up at heeling, attention, and then refreshed the behaviors in our segment.  I learned I've created an unintended problem and Gimme now thinks when she's in center position, paw-on-knee is always what I want.  So I worked to clarify the bent knee is the cue, not the center position; its going to take more work.  This is what happens when I make something pay so well.  So now I need to make being still in any position pay well, to make stillness equally valuable.  (there is some weirdness in the video while J'Anna moves to a different position).  I ended with trying to teach Gimme a new behavior.  I want her to circle me like "around" and "behind, but with distance.  I set up some props for her to "out" around and got mixed results.  She didn't seem inclined to stay out there and J'Anna commented how all the rewards were coming close to me - good point.  I may try this again on our next session.  I don't have enough room to do this indoors and wouldn't want to waste all the time of her searching for treats in the grass.  Though I could try using her special bowl as a distance reward point. 

Session 2 video - If I was surprised to see 12 minutes for the last session, then 18 minutes for this one was even more surprising.  The first thing I noticed was how low my jacket hung.  I wondered if Gimme would object to it.  While she seems distracted at first, I think it was really because she'd just noticed the raw steak on the counter.  Note how she very pointedly sniffs in the direction of the counter.  I reminded her what I wanted once and then she was fine with it.  I can see on the video, there are slits on the side aligned right where she would come through - certainly no more challenging than an agility chute.  We ran through the sequence several times.  I think J'Anna had the field of view too close, but will wait to see what Kim thinks.   Then we did some more work on our new "loop" behavior.  In hindsight - we were already 10 minutes into this session, so Gimme may have been mentally tired.  And I don't know what I was thinking to try to fade four props down to two when she hadn't been correct doing the four.  I'm also wondering if the jacket sleeves weren't somehow changing the look of my hand/arm gestures and confusing her.  She was clearly confused.  We did finally get some nice figure-8-sends, but not consistently.  I wanted to end on a more positive note, so I pulled in the baby chair so she could do some "bacon" to it (one of her favorite behaviors.  Note how unconcerned she is about the chair tipping a bit while she's using it. 

MDSA takes video - I ended up with 7 takes... some are better than others.  The best are 3, 5, 6, and 7.  Of them, I thought 3 and 7 were better and we ended up using #7.

Session 3 video - Because she'd already worked so long (I didn't realize how long), I wanted to make this session simple and short.  I started out with easy behaviors, ones she knows well.  Then I switched to putting some money in the being-still account.  This was only moderately successful.  I should have stopped much sooner.

Gimme seemed off today.  I noticed she had a warm spot along her spine, about 4 inches in front of her hips.  She sometimes seemed unable to focus or listen.  Some cues she knows well were simply not available today.  And I noticed at times she seemed a little clumsy and she was tending to stand splay-legged in the rear.  She also nipped my finger in the course of taking a treat, something she never does.  Being a worried Mommy, I was concerned these could be symptoms from a pre-seizure aura.

Luckily we had a chiropractic appointment today with Dr. Powell.  He found the warm spot and fixed it, along with some adjustments to her hip joints.  These together could certainly explain what I was seeing in her movement.  The warm spot is gone now.  Doc also found her atlas vertebrae was out of alignment.  The atlas vertebrae is always suspect when there are issues with thinking.  He told me there is a probable connection between atlas misalignment and seizures - its just not known which comes first.  He said the atlas misalignment could cause a seizure and equally likely, the intense physical response during a seizure could cause the misalignment.

In any case, Gimme simply loves him.  He didn't have anyone in the slot before out appointment and was sitting on the couch reading a book when we walked in early.  Gimme climbed right up in his lap.  I am so happy we found him; what a blessing...

Nosework (4/16)

We had a most interesting class Tuesday.  I didn't make diagrams, since I have videos.  Though actually *I* don't have the videos.  A classmate had them on her computer and sent them to me via Facebook through messages.  Sadly I've been unable to download them and transfer them to a more permanent record, so don't know how long they will last.

Gimme was much more motivated knowing I had real peanut butter (not PB chips) and this, despite being in full baby mode.  She wouldn't leave the house without the SuperCow-baby and whined and fussed when she was away from the car (and baby) and not searching.  So clearly the peanut butter chips are not enough motivation for her to work with focus.

Video of Searches 1 & 2

Search 1 - Interior - Gimme found the first hide in 34 seconds.  Unfortunately the frozen PB didn't stay frozen and was already very soft in the 20 minutes since it left my big freezer (perhaps the glass of the shot glass makes a difference).  With the open top of the little snack container she was able to get a sizable glob and spent 30 seconds cleansing her palate (licking her leg) before she could resume searching).  She had the second hide in 15 seconds.  Actually I think she knew basically where it was from her first tour about the search area.  I was careful to make sure she only got a little bit of peanut butter, so she was able to move on more quickly.  She did check other things, but after the third time she returned to one or the other hide, I called "finish" and was correct.  She did really nicely.

Search 2 - Container - You'll note she gives a strong sniff on the second box on the right, but didn't indicate.  She did the same on the black bag.  She came back to the black bag pretty quickly and indicate for the first hide in 42 seconds.  I tried to control the amount of PB she got, but she still spent 40 seconds cleansing her palate.  You'll see I got her to move, but she'd go back to the leg licking.  Once she moved on her own, she had to get in one last lick and naturally it was right as she went by the box she'd sniffed earlier (the other hide).  I spent another half minute getting her around the boxes and twice more by the box in question, but still no alert, so I called "finish" and was wrong.  After a small break discussing with the instructors what went wrong, we went up the right side and Gimme nailed the box immediately.

There were two more back to back searches, just more of the same.  Unfortunately the video for them didn't get sent to me before it was deleted.  Gimme did well on both searches and was nicely focused.  I went back to using the go toob and was very careful to make sure she only got a little bit.  It does take a little bit of time to control how much comes out of the go toob, so I want to find a better way to give her what she wants/needs/desires faster - since time becomes much more critical at the higher levels.  I've since had the idea to try using peanut butter in the snack container, but just dab a bit of it with a fingertip for a reward.  Obviously I want to try this in class first.

Video of Search 5

Gimme did an awesome job on this search.  Only one other dog was as fast as Gimme and she's a nice thoughtful hunter and her owner is a good handler.  Of course, she's not flashy and beautiful like Gimme.  Gimme nailed the first hide in just 3 seconds.  Normally she blasts past threshold hides, but there was a little delay while we were waiting at the start line, so she had time to figure out where it was. I always try to remember to hold up at the start line, and take a few deep breaths - we can use no more than 10 seconds at the startline before being faulted (not including if the handler is asking questions - something I always do at element specialty trial searches since you don't get any walk through).  Time to the second hide (including the first hide, being rewarded, a quick leg licking and then finding it) was 27 seconds.  From there to the third hide was only 15 seconds!  

This was a really difficult search, since the hides were set up in a triangle, close to the same plane - it was a really challenging three-way converging odor vortex.  Gimme was AWESOME to solve this puzzle in 42 seconds.  Of course she's always awesome.

Yesterday we met with our new chiropractor.  I've known for two weeks she needed a tune-up and was trying to get with our regular person, but getting no response.  I finally decided it was time to find someone else.  Dr. Powell actually does chiropractor-day at Pawsabilities every 2 weeks and the price is quite reasonable.  I didn't want to wait until the next scheduled day, so drove an hour to meet him.

Gimme liked him immediately, as did I.  He does a non-force style of adjustment, which I especially love for animals.  In addition to the non-force, he's also very aware of the dog's attitude and pauses here and there to give the dog time to get ready to continue.  There was only one place where Gimme hesitated with what he was doing, but he still stopped 5 times to stroke her and tell her what a good, brilliant and beautiful girl she is.  He's very thorough and tells me everything he's doing, what he's finding, how he evaluates it, etc.  He did find the warm spot I thought needed adjusting, though it was one of the last things he adjusted, since he has a certain system he follows to make sure he doesn't miss anything.  He checks each toe all the way to each and every vertebrae in the tail.  He checks and rechecks each vertebrae and each adjustment along the way - as I said "very thorough".  

He did find the top two vertebrae in her neck were out of alignment in opposite directions and said it might be causing headaches and could indeed be behind her lack of focus.  I haven't checked this with another training session yet, since I like to give 24 hours for an adjustment to get to full benefit.  He said he thought she was a little stiff in her spine, but not enough to be concerned about.  Then he went on to say most of his clients are border collies (he works a lot with the agility community), so her level of flexibility may be entirely normal for a Dalmatian.  I had already put her on the calendar for next Thursday, his regularly scheduled chiropractor-day at Pawsabilities, just in case we need it.  He doesn't think we will, but I've decided to take her in for the tune-up anyway, since we have barn hunt on Saturday.  

He also gave me suggestions of things to do every day to keep her spine moving so its less likely to have a problem.   And we discussed how to focus some massage to ensure things are staying limber.

Meanwhile I've noticed the warm spot is back to normal.  I also did the grape-test.  "Grape" is her cue to roll over, which she normally loves.  When she doesn't want to "grape" I know she is experiencing pain/discomfort.  It took her a bit to decide to do it, but then she did.  I think she may have been worried about it hurting.  Later on I'll cue it again and she if she does it more quickly - which would tell me it didn't hurt when she did it.