That's what Izzie is according to her rehab vet. No joke, she even took photos so she could show her off. I've been working hard on Izzie's fitness. I do believe it plays an important part in her endurance and even in her drive. Heck if I wasn't strong enough to do something comfortable do you think I'd want to do it? No way. Anyway, we've been doing mucho peanut ball work as well as regular walks on and off leash. Hills, flats, fast pace short walks, slow pace long walks, running, etc. Then on top of all that, lots of stretching. I stretch this dog all the time, before and after activities, before bed, when she wakes up. Massage massage massage, stretch stretch stretch. Takes a bit of extra time but so worth it. I can see a difference and it's only been a couple months of doing much of anything. Izzie's weakness is her lower back and rear end. She muscles in the front well and has always had a skinny little behind and her back has always been a bit roachy. You can see it in photos. However after I've been working on it more with her, doing exercises that strengthen those things, I've seen an amazing difference. Her back end is visibly more muscled and her core is stronger and a bit thicker (not in a fatty way, if that makes sense) and she even stands more squarely now, no more cheating and standing all crooked and weird. Her back is also levelling out and although it will never be that flat show dog back, it's getting stronger and the roaching in bad places is going away. As for her energy level? It's increased dramatically. After breakfast instead of going back to bed, she wants to play ball or bitey face or run around. She gets bored with doing nothing wants to go walking and chase birds and bark at frisbee golfers (see, even the pug knows frisbee golf is lame). Anyway what i'm getting at is conditioning pays off if you work hard at it. As for the appointment? Well she saw Dr. Devall last month up in Calgary to check out her weird tricep thing, which went away with stretching and crate rest. She had a few adjustments needed and some laser and traumeel. Her whole body was rotated to her left, kinda how heeling makes her turn. So with all that done when i heard she was coming to town i figured it wouldn't hurt to have a follow up visit. Luckily everything stayed put and she only needed a few little things. Her head was on straight and her pelvis wasn't tilted, and she noted that Iz is noticeably more muscular in the rear. So all in all, she's the picture of health and the poster child of what a healthy, in shape, active Pug should look like. Ya, she's pretty awesome.
I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the Iz! Izzie did very well this weekend in all her events. She ran her little heart out and even qualified in snooker. That makes 3/4 masters snooker Qs now toward her title. One more! She wasn't feeling the weaving in either standard or challenge but I made her do them in challenge. More proofing I guess because she's been pretty bang on at our barn the last few weeks. In gamble I made a handling mistake and pointed my feet the wrong place so she pulled into me instead of continuing on to the tunnel but I was able to send her back out almost 20 feet to the tunnel from little momentum so I'll count that as a success even if the buzzer did go. We struggle with distance stuff which is why we're still chasing that last advanced gamble Q, but she's improving all the time. That's about all there is to report, so here's a video of our snooker run.
It's no secret that I don't love my job. Even my customers can tell and while most sympathize with me and realize very few people love working in retail, some have complained about how I don't look like I'm enjoying myself at work.
I'll tell you a not so secret, secret. I'm not enjoying myself. It's retail, it's a job.
Stuff gets on my nerves and I'm more often than not pretty grumpy after being asked what the best way to show a dog who's boss is, or how someone can treat an eye ulcer without seeing a vet over and over and over again.
So why do I do it?
The answer is that little dog up there at the top of this post. I work this job because it's relatively flexible in hours (well what few I get anyway), it pays me decently, and sometimes I get to bring Iz to work. It allows me to pay for all the things I do with Iz. To an extent anyway. I wish I could do a lot more for her, and even get her a friend.
It is what it is though and every time I come home bitchy because a customer came in 5 minutes to close and made me stay almost half an hour late, I just cuddle up to my special little girly and remember that I'm sticking it out where I am for now so I can keep doing the activities we love to do together.
If something better comes along and it's meant to be it will happen. I'll continue to search but for now, Izzie is my reminder to keep going.
Izzie is strange. There's just something about her that is odd. She's too aware, too human. She really doesn't act like a "normal" dog, but really what is normal? I don't know. Shes awesome, no doubt about that, but she just isn't very doggy. Maybe it's because compared to customers dogs she's much better trained and socialized. I am pretty sure she's a person reincarnated as a dog. So what have we been up to? Well at the start of January we went to an agility seminar with Kathy Keats. It was pretty great, I audited 3/4 sessions and worked Izzie in a baby dog one. She did great, nothing was very challenging for her so it was great to come back to after her break from being broken. Then we visited the rehab vet up in Calgary. Izzie was glad to see her, but my wallet wasn't! Ouch! Izzie needed it though and it was worth every penny. She was pretty out, completely rotated to her left side. She said this causes issues extending so very well could have caused her tricep issue. That tricep issue could have also caused the neck to be out of the neck being out could have cause the tricep issue. Who knows. Bottom line is it was gone by the chiro appt and she was adjusted and lasered and poked with 2 jabs of traumeel. Feeling good as new we're moving forward to injury prevention which takes me to our next thing! The last weekend of January we attended a workshop on peanut ball exercises, stretching and conditioning. Izzie did great as we have already been working on the ball for a couple of months. However it was nice to have more eyes on her, especially to point out weak spots. So moving forward from that we have a lot of good stuff to work on and soon she'll be ripped! This will hopefully help her speed and endurance too, I can already see a difference simply in how she stands and even with her weave poles as she's stronger now and has an easier time keeping up with the weaving action. So that pretty much brings you all up to speed. I'll try and blog more regularly! Can your weirdo flexi dog do this?
Via Flickr: In Canada, today marks the beginning of the end for the Penny as we are to start moving it out of circulation. I suppose that means this saying is on it's way to becoming obsolete as well!
That's all I've got today. I've been slacking again haha. I'll make myself sit down and write something good tomorrow!
I forgot to blog, I am sorry. Then because I forgot to blog, I forgot what I was going to blog about. Again, my bad. I'm just trapped in a vortex of forgetfulness.
So since I forgot to blog what I forgot I was going to blog, here's something different.
So on Saturday I was originally planning on going up to Calgary to the Alberta Kennel Club Winter Classic dog show to box load for No Non-Scents, but since I wasn't doing anything else or racing I decided I just couldn't afford the trip. Especially after Izzie's chiro vet appointment last Wednesday. That one hurt my bank account but was well worth it.
Anyway since I had a free weekend for the first time like ever, I decided to spend half of it learning about another hobby of mine. Photography. This specific workshop was about editing in Lightroom, which is what I've been poking around on for the past year pretending I know what I'm doing. I found it very informative and learned some new functions to use and different techniques to get certain results. Way cool!
Hopefully through practising these new editing techniques and continuing to work on my photography in general I'll get better at it!
So that's my blog post about something I do other than dog stuff. Although Izzie is in most of my photos. So I guess it kind of still involves dogs. Oh well!
