The Unfortunate Monkey Wrench

Of course, prepping for a trial cannot just be a simple, routine, thing.  Nope, never! Instead, Marge goofed off with the cat last night, went running up the stairs like a lunatic, and it was then that I discovered that she was limping on her right hind.  That's the one she injured this past April, two weeks before her first AKC trial.  It was her hip flexor back then. Rest and Rimadyl did the trick.

The limp went away with a few steps, but I took precaution, iced it for 15 minutes, and sent her to sleep.

Maybe she just stepped funny or something.  She seems fine today - seems to be putting weight on it evenly, didn't get upset when I moved it around.  She has no reservations about moving around or acting goofy. I'm still keeping her pretty quiet, and I iced it again, too.  I can't tell if there's a slight gimp or not - I'm famous for seeing things that aren't there and dogs are equally famous for hiding them.

This certainly throws a monkey wrench in to my plans.  I planned on taking her for a long walk on this windy pre-trial day, but that's not happening, obviously.

I've been letting her sleep on the couch, getting her up every once in a while to have her potty and for me to watch her.  She dozed in the sun for a few minutes.  I might take her for a short leash walk later.

I also finally picked up Nupro Joint Support, the supplement my trainer uses.  It's supposed to help with all kinds of stuff - joints, soft tissue, coat, digestion, immune system.  I made a gravy out of it for her, and she lapped it up very heartily.  I'm going to give her another 1/2 scoop later (she's right on the borderline weightwise between 1 and 1 1/2 scoops), and then again in the morning.

This is highly upsetting - she's put on a ton of muscle the past couple of months and I've been doing a good job keeping her in shape.  The only area where I might be lacking is stretching - but she's not getting hurt doing agility, she's getting hurt doing stupid stuff like running in the field or tripping up the staircase.  She was FINE on Tuesday night, and I did make sure to warm her up.  Maybe I need to add more strength training to her regimen.  Core and balance and stuff like that.

Gosh, how I wish she would swim...

Anyway. As of right now, I'm still taking her to the trial tomorrow.  Marisa is going to be there, and I will ask her to feel her leg before we run (if we run) to see if there's an issue.  She said she can massage her, too, which I would really like.

I will NOT run an injured dog, so if I have doubts, I won't do it.  I'm going to play it by ear.  Worst case, it'll just be a day of socialization and pretty parks for Marge with no agility.