Crash and Burn Agility

This weekend Whisper and I were lucky she didn't get badly injured. It always scares me when a greyhound goes down and somersaults. I have known many greyhounds to break their necks running into objects while playing or coursing. Saturday we ran our Jumpers course early in the morning while the ground was still alittle slick with dew. She started off fast and on the third jump exhibitors said she made a turn and went to take off and her back legs slipped. She crashed into the top bar with her chest which caused her to land on her head/neck and somersault. Of course it happened so quickly by the time I was aware of what was happening she was struggling to her feet dazed. I walked her off the course and within minutes she seemed okay. Oddly enough this was the same trial and the same Jumpers ring that Lyric was injured in a tunnel in two years ago. Lyric never enjoyed agility again.




The Standard course was about an hour later. Whisper seemed recovered enough to try but I was more worried than she was. The standard course had one of our hardest sequences-a turn off a contact obstacle into a tunnel. Not only once but twice during the course, a turn into a tunnel from the A frame and later towards the end of the run a turn into a tunnel from the dog walk. I have been practicing a turn command for such situations but she has a hard time understanding it means go into the tunnel. I decided I would be happy if we could get the tunnel entrance after the A frame-anything else would be extra especially on top of my nerves. Not only did she get the A frame/tunnel she completed the course 11 seconds under time. Her runs were videoed this time and should be posted later this week.

After the runs we went to the dog massage therapist for some muscle/tendon/ligament evaluation. Everything physically seemed okay.