Is my dog normal? And Chirporactor pondering a

[emm0r]

So my dog is a nutter... She can bend in all sorts of freaky ways. Do any of you use a chiropractor for your dogs or is it just not necessary?

And cos she is disgusting....

 

[ecrozier]

Lol she isn't disgusting she is gorgeous! I can hear the sound effects that go with those pictures - the one that has any dog owner other than other Rott/staff owners running for the hills thinking a massacre is occurring?!
I don't use a chiro for my older boy (Rott) but were we to be starting over now, maybe I would, as I know I feel the benefit as does my horse, and the same (mctimoney) chiro does also treat dogs! When current puppy finishes growing I would like him to do either agility or fly ball and then may well treat him to an occasional chiro session.

 

[CorvusCorax]

Great pics

I don't but may to in future, I know a few people in IPO who use chiros for their dogs as they do have to slam into helpers with alarming regularity
Greyhound chiros are pretty well respected among GSD folk, if you are still doing bitework with her I would walk her about a bit after the session to keep her loosened up and warm her up a bit first.

 

[emm0r]

I am really careful with warming up and cooling off. I am slightly obsessive about all those kinds of things! Good advice r.e greyhounds and still doing bitework but a lack of helpers has made this difficult lately! slightly off topic but have you don't your Bh yet?

 

[CorvusCorax]

Yes, we passed the BH in April, thanks for asking and aiming for IPOI at the end of the year.

He was first in the down and broke it after about three minutes (he didn't get up but was creeping towards the working dog) so I had to collect him and was convinced we'd blown it. It was horrible as I had my back to him and I could see everyone on the fence wincing!!

However his heeling was superb and we got great comments about his work/our bond so we had enough points to go through to the traffic test, which we passed.

If I was to give you major tips they would be -

Crack the long down, it's ten points in the bank. Mine was attacked by another dog in the down about a month before the trial and while it was never our best exercise, he's been bad with it ever since it's also the only exercise where I have no control/there is no consequence if he misbehaves as I am 30 paces away!!

Make sure your dog is used to being scanned for a chip. Despite scanning gazillions of dogs at events, I forgot to teach my own to stand quietly and we had a few hairy moments when I though he was going to eat the beepy scanner, cue me and the (pretty pee'd off!!) trainer at the back of the van with five minutes to go, stuffing food into him and waving our mobile phones over his shoulder!!!

Practise heelwork on concrete as well as grass. Our traffic test was a bit messy as he had no idea why I was asking him for a formal heel on the footpath as we would never normally do that out on a walk.

Sorry for the essay but you did ask any date set for you two?

 

[emm0r]

Congratulations that's excellent!

I fear our long down is probably the weakest excersise but that's mostly my fault because I haven't done enough work picking her back up so she creeps
Good tip about scanning I hadn't even thought of that! And as for concrete I do quite a bit of heelwork in the car parks before our walks so I would hope for that not to be a problem! But you never know.

Unfortunately it has been drama after drama here so I haven't done as much as I would like lately. I think I might wait till spring next year now so I can spend the winter perfecting the boring stuff. wish there was a club near by.

 

[CorvusCorax]

Thanks was a relief to get it over with and at least I'll never have to do the heelwork pattern twice, ever again!!

With the collection, build in loads of pauses, five seconds, ten seconds - it's the going too quick that causes all the twitchiness as the dog learns to pre-empt everything, shooting up into sit etc. Mine goes spongo when I go into the pocket for the lead so I try to keep it very slow and calm.
A flypole can help if you can get the loan of one!

Sorry to hear about your drama! You're dead right though, winter is a perfect time to work on all the boring stuff. In December I was still only doing three or four forward paces of heelwork!

You could look up some Michael Ellis/Leerburg YouTube or DVDs to keep you going - I don't follow that programme but I hear people speak very highly of it.

 

[MurphysMinder]

Friend has just got her BH with her 7 year old (change in career after retiring from WT), he has a slight issue with strangers and is not chipped so it was a case of inspecting his ear tattoo. Cue weeks of everyone she knew being asked to peer into the dogs ear.
And in answer to the original question, I don't use a chiropractor but have done in the past when doing agility, and we used a greyhound guy. Mind you I am thinking of keeping mine in bubble wrap at the moment, Freya knocked a toe back hooning with her mum,which led to a couple of weeks cage rest and on lead exercise which drove us both mad. Then she just gets okay and is out in the garden with Evie and they start charging round, so I call them back in, what does Evie do, tries a skid turn round the corner of the house, slips on the gravel and is now also lame and on lead only exercise. I give up!