Adjusting

The dogs are adjusting well to life in New England. Our friends house has a big grassy yard and a pool, which is a huge improvement from our tiny yard and very few swimming options. Between our two families, all of our faster competition dogs are jumping 10" in flyball, so we've been doing power jumping in the yard and then swimming to cool off and get more exercise. We also do some hikes and chuck-it sessions.

We took our three dogs to a chiropractor today that knows sport dogs. She was really great compared to our other experiences. I've always thought Indigo didn't seem right, but when I've taken her for adjustments they always look at me like I'm crazy. That's because the sport dog and pet dog are way different. Our three dogs were all off. Indigo's pelvis was crooked, Goose's head/neck was off and Pax's whole left side needed work.

We had a tournament two weeks ago in Seekonk, MA. Our Division 1 team didn't have much competition, which sucks. I'd rather lose to good competition than win easily. It was actually a good thing though because Goose's ball spitting problem got a lot worse. He spit the ball in almost every race. We had to pull him a lot and use Pax and Mustang, both running full time on the multi-team. We won multi and regular, but really need to fix Goose's little problem quickly.

We came up with a fun game to work on ball spitting - We set up powerjumps and then send Goose back and forth between us, but he has a carry a ball over all the jumps and then as a reward he gets to play ball. We've also been using the outdoor jumps to work on Pax's speed to to the box (my on-going challenge). I have Ben start him like he's sending him for a full run, but instead of a box at the end of the jumps...it's me with a chuck-it. As soon as Ben releases him I throw the chuck-it. Wow! He can run fast for a moving ball. The jumps barely interfere with his full speed running.

Otherwise the dogs are doing well. I'm experimenting with Pax's food to see if he has a food allergy because it's not normal for a dog to have such nasty gas. Right now he's on Lamb only. Also the ticks are awful here. I'm getting used to pulling them off the dogs on a daily basis. If we go into the woods it's pretty much guaranteed that they'll all have several ticks.

We have ANOTHER tournament this weekend and then next weekend too! This weekend is Navon, Ontario. We are leaving tomorrow night and driving to the Albany area so that we don't have to do eight hours all in one day. It's U-FLI and we are running two teams and lots of singles and we'll have Fin with us.