im prefacing this with the fact that im not ignoring rah's heart disease - it's the elephant in the corner of the room, it's ever present in my mind, it's there in everything i do, ever movement he makes. but i am trying my best not to let it ruin every little thing i enjoy in life. there are few things i do anymore that i take true pleasure in just for me, just because i want to do them - the responsibilities of my life have become such that i have a lot of things i have to do, a lot of things i must do - and so many drains and requirements on me that very few things i get to do because i want to. this is one of them.
he's been on meds for a week, and i rechecked bloodwork and a quick ECG on tuesday and it showed NO vpc's at all - which has me and the cardiologist very hopeful that things will be regulated very well for at least a little while. i have a call in to UofFl to see if he qualifies for their stem cell therapy study in which case rah may be taking the vacation i never get to take so he can have cutting edge surgery to fix his broken heart. (if only such an option existed for mine).
someone made the comment that this is because i love rah more - i dont love rah more. i adore berlin just as much - she's my bitchy bitch, the dog whose personality mimics mine to a T. rah loves everyone - i cannot say the same for me. rah wants nothing else than to have people love him, admire him, and touch him all the time. berlin and i want nothing else than for people to leave us the !@#!@#!@ alone. rah wants what he wants, to please him. berlin wants to be with me. i would do the same for her - but right now, i dont have to make those awful decisions, and hopefully i never will. right now, she's got half her body underneath the computer and on my lap. she's attached to me at the hip. we may have our issues we work out in terms of training, but we certainly have mutual love and admiration going on. sometimes we just have the problem of whose the bigger bitch :)
had a private lesson on saturday - worked rah a bit (it was agility) but he wasn't 100% sound - debbie noted that whether it was concern over soundness, concern over his heart, meds? who knows - but both of us were in MUCH more control of ourselves and it was nice. he rocked his serpentines in very close quarters - then i switched and got berlin and worked a course that had a lot of flips and crosses and tight turns. she got tired and poopfaced because she hates outs while i do a cross so we had too work on the whole "YOU WILL NOT RUN A POOP DOG" and then we brought rah back out to work on his verbal cues for rear crosses over the jump. because he is vortex-y.
yesterday i decided not to run rah in agility this session - waiting til after his next echo/holter on 3/11 before we go back to that excitement! just berlin - worked on a course with lots of 180's and incorporated independent weaves. she has problems collecting herself into the weaves so she missed entrances, but the second course she did well (of course, she was going much slower into that entrance!) - being the fastest dogs in the class make it harder on my two, which is why rah NEVER gets the entrances). the second course had her beloved serpentines - and she is the serpentine QUEEN (she's also pretty good at threadles) - i dont know why we rock these so hard. ironically she handled it better when i broke it down and did a landing side front cross for the second half but she was nice!
rah did open and utility tonight (though im not sure i will do both classes with him next session) - he was so much calmer in retrieving tonight too, he was doing AWESOME calm fronts !!! WHO GAVE ME THIS DOG???? perfect fronts, calm, no stepping around. no front feet movement. i loved it. heeling wasn't wonderful and he was forging but oh well... drop wasn't super fast, his ROH was a bit sloppier on the front, his fig8 was very nice and he had great position. halts were very nice today.
utility - VERY nice gloves - screwed up #3 pivot the first time, but the second time he had lovely pivots, went out to all of them and pretty good fronts, fairly nice finishes. did awesome at articles (i didnt even think if his meds would affect his ability to scent?). go outs were very nice, i didnt jump him at his full height.
his moving stand and signals are going to be his ever present area to work on - i need him to stop moving his feet. the signal part is fine - its the STILL part. the not moving. im really at a loss here. just stand still rah. STAND STILL. CAN YOU DO STILL??? EVER???????? STOP MOVING>
halp.
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