The Weekend Report: Bad News!

This past weekend was an agility trial out at my favorite spot, the farm in Reva, Virginia. The weather was a tad chilly but really not too bad. Saturday was a normal, fun agility day. Jimmy Q'd in his first run of the day, earning 1st place and 18 points. Next, the Standard run was going quite well, but I pulled Jimmy off of a jump after he came out of the chute. Totally my fault, I didn't think about needing to provide stronger support to a jump he couldn't see until he was out of the chute fabric. Darn! There went our chance at a Double-Q.

Sunday also started with a Jumpers run, but things went quickly awry. It started with a tightly turned tunnel to a jump. I had someone videoing my run so I can see that Jimmy was perfectly fine coming into the ring, raring to go. He went into the tunnel just fine and headed for the #2 jump and knocked the bar, then he knocked the next bar and his stride was all wrong. I could see something was very wrong and stopped short calling for him to stop. He was confused at my stopping and even more so when I picked him up and carried him out. He may have thought he was being punished for knocking the bars which certainly was not my intent. I just knew something was wrong. I can only quess that something in the way he took off for the #2 jump must have stressed either a back or groin muscle enough to cause gait-altering pain. Poor boy! I took him back to the car and let him rest. If it was only a charlie-horse, it might wear off. He still seemed out of sorts after a bit of rest, so of course I scratched out of our second run. I walked him a small bit to keep him from stiffening up too much and then headed home.

Sigh. You never want to bring home an injured dog from an agility trial. I feel like a schmuck and Jimmy just feels sore. Neither one is good. Jimmy is a dog who is very rough on his body, taking superman flying leaps down the deck steps, flying across the room to react to something on TV, but agility is something I ask him to do, so I feel awful that he was injured! Tomorrow, he'll get a massage and a laser treatment to see if it eases the soreness.

A few months ago, I wrote about Jimmy and I qualifying for the 2016 AKC National Championship. It's in just two weeks from now. However, getting my new job pretty much ix-nayed being able to go. Too much travel time to Tulsa (4 full days of driving round-trip!) plus a long 4-day weekend competing is way too much time off from a new job. I was bummed but resigned. Now with Jimmy's injury, I still might not have been going, had the job not waylaid us first! Some things are just not meant to be!

So there you have it. Definitely not the usual Weekend Report and not one I enjoyed reporting. Please send Jimmy all the good vibes you can, and maybe he will be on the mend quickly.

Update: I wrote this post earlier today but didn't hit Publish. By evening, I could tell Jimmy was feeling a bit better, although still reluctant to do stairs. Hopefully his brighter mode and easier movements are a good sign!