a Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Poor Tika, Dumb Mom

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Poor Tika, Dumb Mom

SUMMARY: It's Tuesday and Tika's still sore.

As I said in a comment on my Sunday post, "I was stupid and let her play frisbee like a maniac before we went home and now she can barely move. Not even for food. Poor baby. More massaging, another doggie aspirin."

And Tika not moving for food is a dire thing. She was marginal yesterday, didn't even want to shake her blanket like a lunatic while I was getting dressed in the morning, which is a mandatory ritual.

Today she shook her blanket a little bit but, when she started to play with Boost (another morning ritual), very quickly she told The Booster a big what for, which I presume means that something hurt and she blamed it on the babydog.

She wants to run and chase her toy in the yard, but is chasing only tentatively and is not doing the usual try-to-stop-it or the very traditional pounce-and-release, either, and is all too happy to let Boost get ahead of her, nearly unheard of. I'm not preventing her from doing anything--she seems to be self-regulating at the moment, which means she's really sore. I feel so badly about the frisbee Sunday. But she WANTED to! She LOVED it! Jeez.

So--more aspirin, more massaging--which, incidentally, she is just about begging for. I don't spend nearly enough time hands-on with my dogs. A few minutes in the morning when we first get up, a tiny bit of love and affection after I wipe their feet off if the yard's muddy. Poor babies. I'm feeling just generally guilty today, I guess.

So now I'm trying to decide whether to scratch her now from this weekend's trial. Or maybe just leave her in one run a day. I don't want her mom to do something stupid to her again. Of course I'd like to do the Steeplechase on Saturday. But, if we're going to do that, it might be good to have a warm-up run in something else earlier in the day. Argh. I hate these decisions!

6 comments:

  1. You probably mention it somewhere else, but I take it you need a Steeplechase leg? It's 2 for nationals now, right? I vote rest her Wed-Thu (100%), walk/jog warmup for 2-3 minutes, then test with a toy on Fri. Then rub down. If she looks 100% on the test, repeat warmup (walk/trot) etc for steeplechase (no warmup run--I think that's like warming up for the 100 yard dash by running a 100 yard dash...). If she looks tentative (be honest with yourself), scratch.

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  2. Yup, need that 2nd Q for Nationals. Assuming I'm going. Which I don't know.

    If she's tentative, there's actually no point in trying to run her in Steeplechase. Other than mucking her up again, she'd just not make time or knock bars. So that issue is probably self-correcting for me.

    -ellen

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  3. Not in any way trying to tell you what to do but it's been my experience that dogs rarely show any sign of pain until it's pretty intense. Then as soon as it's back to a manageable level they go full blast again.

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  4. I am listening to all your voices of reason to try to override my normal reaction of "it'll take care of itself." It won't kill me to scratch Tika from this weekend. It's a local trial, there are absolutely no titles at stake and no reason to push for them anyway; it's just that Steeplechase thing. But, as I said, if she's not 100%, she's not going to get it anyway.

    I'm waiting and watching; I'll decide for sure by Friday morning.

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  5. i have a german shepherd/rotty mix named tika! i saw your title, poor tika, dumb mom, and thought for a second that i wrote it!! :-) beautiful doggies!!

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  6. How funny! Welcome to Taj MuttHall and The Other Tika. ;-)

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