Genesis Belgian Shepherds

In my last post, on the Novel litter’s 11th birthday, I was quite excited about Aslan competing in the Master class at the Rally National Championship (RNC) and debuting in Open Obedience a week later.

Welllll, things didn’t go so well for us at the RNC. Our first run of the day was the absolute worst run of Aslan’s entire Rally career, and only his second Rally NQ ever. A friend had recorded our run, and she commented that something might be wrong with him because he didn’t seem to be acting himself. As I watched the video, I didn’t see anything physically wrong, but he was acting very nervous, which was unlike him. While it is a difficult venue for a lot of dogs, he had been there twice before, and I couldn’t think of any reason for him to be acting out of sorts.

Our second run received a qualifying score, but it was not our best run, and by that point, I could tell that something was definitely wrong, as he did not want to sit, and it was clearly uncomfortable for him to do so :-(

I contacted my vet, who graciously squeezed us in last week, and she discovered two issues going on:
(1) He needed his a**l glands expressed (I could tell he already felt MUCH better after that!).
(2) The vet felt that there was something going on in Aslan’s lower back. The x-rays looked much better than she expected for his age and pain reaction, so he either tweaked something or had a muscle/soft-tissue injury of some sort. He's on meds and restricted activity for 14-21 days. (Obviously, I pulled him from Friday’s Open debut). After that, if he's acting normal again, I can ease him back into running & jumping to assess if he can still compete in regular or preferred, or if he should be retired.

The strange thing is that he seemed perfectly fine before we drove to the RNC that morning. We warmed up in the training garage for about 5 minutes before we left, and absolutely nothing seemed off. After thinking about it (okay, obsessing about it), I think I figured out what may have happened…

I keep a rubber-backed bathmat in the dogs’ car crates to keep them from slipping, but inevitably, every dog digs them up and kicks them out of the way. And, as usual, Aslan did the same when we left. I now wonder if he slipped and hurt his back when I went around a curve or turned a corner. Heck, I can tweak my back or neck just putting my socks on in the morning , so I can see how a slip might cause an injury.

And then I think it may have been aggravated because of his stupid owner (that would be me :-(). Wherever we go to trials, the dogs are always crated on matting or turf. But at the RNC, the crating area is a hard floor, and it never occurred to me to bring something extra soft and cushy in addition to his normal crate mat (which he also kicks out of the way ), so lying in his crate on that hard floor all day probably exacerbated any pain he was already feeling. My poor boy :-(

It makes sense, if he was feeling a little "off" when we got there, that he was nervous in his first run. Then, after the long break between classes, he would have been hurting for his second run, resulting in him not wanting to sit.

Primo pads are already on order for the car crate and his trial crate, so I will not fail him again

They say that time seems to go faster as you get older. That certainly seems true, especially today, as I celebrate the Novel litter's 11th birthday.

P.D. - CH Starbright Summerstorm U!Run UD RN PT NA NAJ
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Justice - Genesis Basquelaine Catherine Crier CD RE NAP NJP

When the pups were about 2 or 3 days old, I told Fran, P.D.'s owner, that the dark-blue ribbon boy already reminded me of his daddy, and that has not changed in 11 years

It was a beautiful day, so I decided to see how Aslan would work outside. Even though it was "home turf," the location presented multiple distractions because (a) we rarely train outside, (b) we were in our big yard where we usually go for off-leash walks/playtime, (c) I had just mowed, and (d) the neighbor was building his new porch & his young daughters were playing on the swingset.

On-leash heeling was good -- very good! Off-leash heeling was more than a little la-de-dah, which is not surprising given that this is our usual off-leash play/walk area.

There were two pretty funny incidents. One was during the drop-on-recall exercise. After he dropped, I walked in to reward the down, and I accidentally kicked a big clump of grass on him. Kinda hit him in the face a little bit, then fell onto his feet, completely covering them. Oops! Sorry, buddy! Good boy for staying!!

The other funny was something I shouldn't have laughed about, but I couldn't help myself. On the retrieve over the high, he took the jump, picked up the dumbbell, swung way off to the side around the jump, and hiked his leg on a bush -- while still carrying the dumbbell -- before coming back in for his front. LOL!!

I had one of my best days at a Rally Trial today. It had nothing to do with Aslan's scores, which were good yet disappointing because I know he can do better.

He earned a 96 in Master (not terrible considering there was some lagging, and I had to repeat a couple commands on one exercise), a 97 in Excellent, and a 98 in Advanced.

I know he's a bit bored with Rally, which was why he was semi-retired after his RACH. We only started trialing again to warm up for the Master class at the Rally National Championship.

Because of his lagging issue, I have been wondering if he's not enjoying himself at all any more, and maybe I should give up on the idea of competing in Open Obedience. After all, he will be 11 in a couple weeks. (How did THAT happen so quickly?!?)

Yet, this dog loves to train! If he thinks I'm heading for the back gate, he stares at the training garage, then looks at me, then at the garage door... When we go out to walk in our big yard, he always stops at the training room door on both the way out and the way back in -- ever hopeful that I might stop and let him in for some training fun.

On training days, he runs to the door and excitedly waits for me to open up, and then he bounds in. And he heels so perfectly here . (Yeah, I know we need to get out and train more places.)

Despite all that, I've been having serious doubts about continuing with him. Which brings me back to why today was such a wonderful day...

First, a friend was kind enough to video our Excellent run, and when I played it back, it didn't look nearly as bad as it felt when we were actually on the course, and Aslan did seem to be enjoying himself, which is most important!

Second, another friend came up to me after Advanced and said that Aslan had smiled the entire way through that run. She said that he looked like he was having a great time out there with his person and looked so happy!

Soooo... plans are still on to give Open a try...

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Another thing that made me very happy today was the camaraderie I saw amongst competitors. People helping each other... At one point, the judge joked about someone helping another exhibitor, "Well, I don't know, that is your competition, so it's up to you!" LOL!

And also, there was a person there who was, shall we say, a little different than what would be considered normal. I won't go into specifics because I don't want to identify them on social media, but it was the kind of "different" that could have caused some people to keep their distance, whisper or giggle, and give "that" look. You know what I mean.

But I never saw that happen. Maybe it did, and I just didn't see it. What I did see were other competitors and the judge welcoming this exhibitor to their first in-person Rally Trial and giving them pointers on how to improve. I was so proud to be part of this group of people today!

Given the weather reports I had heard, I didn't think we'd actually be able to go to our Rally Trial today (and then when the alarm went off, I almost hoped it *was* bad weather ). But, I got up and the weather was fine, so off we went.

Aslan competed for the first time since last July's Rally National. There was some tough scoring today, and I was incredibly pleased and proud to walk away with a Rally Master score of 96 and a first-place ribbon.

The second-place winner also had a 96, and they are a top-notch team, so I was quite surprised when the judge called Aslan's number for first.

So very proud of this boy who, even at 10-1/2 years old, is always happy to get out there and strut his stuff

Great training session tonight with multiple dogs. Aslan was simply AMAZING, and I can't wait till this weekend's Rally Trial. Although, if the "bad dress rehearsal" superstition holds true, maybe we would have been better off to have not had such a fabulous session -- LOL!

Gryffindor insisted on a turn, too, which is hilarious because he has never wanted to do obedience. But he wanted some extra attention, so I took him to the training room, where he did a few sits & downs and cookie scatters. I want to do some scent work with him just for fun.

Gosh, it's been a long time since I posted here on the Genesis page. Life got a little crazy for a while , but I'm trying to get back in the training groove again.

Last night when we were training, I tossed the dumbbell for Aslan, and it bounced off the mats and down the two steps that lead to the other garage. Just for kicks, I went ahead and gave the retrieve command. He went out in the right direction and then stood there looking around, a little confused, as if to say, "Where'd it go?"

I encouraged him, he kept working, and it didn't take him much time to figure it out. To think that not all that long ago, this dog didn't even like to retrieve, and now he will happily search for a misplaced dumbbell. I was amused, pleased, and proud :-)