Month: May 2010

Mixed Emotions still arising 7 months post amp….

Morning all my Tripawd friends,

Last night, as I took Maggie for another woods trail adventure(of which she handled with style again!) I had emotions come back to me that haven’t arisen it’s ugly head since she was amputated 7 months ago. 

As I watched her so easily do her “tripawd trot” and look so beautiful and appear so healthy, albiet on 3 legs, I was very saddened again as to WHY, WHY, WHY did this happen to my girl???  WHY???  Maggie started out as a pup getting very good Wysong kibble, then I gradually added raw meat to her kibble to eventually switching her over to premixes(Honest Kitchen, Urban Wolf, Sojo’s) with raw meat added.  She has had nothing but the BEST foods all her life!  And to top that off, she has had very few vaccines in her lifetime and never, ever flea/tick preventatives – only natural stuff for those bugs!  I have done, what I thought, was the best I could do for her to keep her healthy.  But alas, she gets soft tissue sarcoma in her left knee 7 months ago and have to amputate her leg.  She has NEVER been overweight, always fit all her life – competing in agility for 8 years.  WHY!?!??!?!?!??!

Ugh.  Then from being very sad and bawling last nite for a short stint, I then got angry thinking WHY my dog.  Why not the neighbor’s dog who has NEVER been well cared for like my dog!  WHY!?!?  One day, I was trying to convince a co-worker that he should switch his Lab pup over to a better food than Iams and he said why, your dog got cancer…alot of good that good food did.  Point taken.  Pretty hard to give a “good food speech” when I don’t have good evidence to show for it, huh?!?  Maybe I should just feed Walmart brand foods and pump my dogs full of vaccines and chemicals and they’d live a healthy, ripe, old age(with four legs).   I know, I’m being stupid saying that but…………

Then the emotions quickly changed to once again, having “happy tears” and a smile on my face for Maggie as she went for a swim, well, swim for her is at least going in up to her belly for sticks 🙂  This was her first time in the water since amputation!  I didn’t dare throw the sticks too far…I don’t want her to hurt herself(yes, protective Mother that I am).  She LOVED it.  I LOVED it.  I LOVE her.  Yes…I am damn happy she’s still here….but I still wonder what in the world did she do to deserve all this! ?  What did I do wrong for her?!?

To end this miserable feeling sorry for my dog blog, here’s a picture of her doing agility 🙂

Stowe, Vermont NADAC Agility Trial, August 2005

And a photo of her on her FIRST hot dog roast in the woods – we were celebrating Maggie still being here with us after amputation 🙂

Maggie wants the hot dog on that stick!

Do other Tripawd pawrents feel like I did last night?  Even after so much time has passed after amputation?  Am I the only crazy pawrent that still has feelings of what went wrong?  What should I have done differently for Maggie to have avoided this happening to her?

I am soooooooooooo happy she’s still here with me but I still have so many questions in my head…that I guess I will never have the answers to…

Tracy

A Little Bit of This n’ That

Well, it’s a lazy & HOT Sunday evening…so Mom is lettin’ me blog 🙂

A couple weeks ago after my debut in Rally Obedience, I got some presents in the mail…a High In Trial ribbon and a plaque! Is that cool or what!? Here’s a picture of me, Mom and my ‘goods’!

This weekend has been sooooooooooooo hot and soooooooooooooo buggy! You see, we live in Northern Maine and in the Spring after it heats up, these darn little BLACKFLIES come out with a vengeance! Holy CowDog! are they a nuisance! But me, I’m the smart one of the bunch cause I seek out the coolest and least buggy spots around the yard. I was in my doghouse when Mom and little sister, Haley, invaded my space!

This morning, before it got too darn hot, Mom took me for a walk – we decided to go on an adventure! Only she forgot her camera so no proof other than my story 🙂 I really haven’t walked much on the woods trails…Mom has been worried it might be too much for me. Well, as usual, I proved her wrong! The trail was a bit hilly and rough ground but I was a sure footed AgileCowDog that I am! 3 legs or 4 – no matter to me! I did my lovely Tripawd Trot over low trees, through mud holes and up and down small inclines. My Mom was almost in tears again…what is up with her? She made me take frequent breaks and I wanted to just keep goin’! She short cutted the trek though…she’s so afraid I’m going to get tired. Well – I proved to her I could handle that short jaunt, so she told me we’ll try another woods adventure soon 🙂

That’s all from this neck of the woods! Stay cool AND steer clear of those darn blackflies!!!!

Maggie – aka Maggie Three Paws – my new nickname 😉

Debut in APDT Rally Obedience is a HIT!

Hey all my Tripawd Friends!

Guess what! Guess what! I was a HIT at Rally Obedience this weekend!! And I don’t just mean that I was a hit as in a cool dog to watch but HIT also stands for HIGH IN TRIAL!!! Me! I was the bestest of the weekend! Can you believe that?!?!?! Well, I can..cause I AM pretty full of myself at times and this was a time where I thought I was a pretty darn cool Tripawd showing the world that YES! indeed, I can STILL rock in a ring! 🙂 Pffttt….who needs four legs anyway?! Look at me perform in Level 1…I earned my title getting three qualifying scores for my RL1 title! And then I got a fourth one to go toward my Excellent title in Level 1!

This first video is my very first run! I did four for the weekend but we didn’t get my very BEST run of a perfect score of 210! I made NO mistakes to get that score! 🙂 My other scores were 199, 204 and 204 out of 210. Not too darn shabby for this 3 legger, eh?

Everyone was sooo impressed with me…saying things like I was so inspirational. Me? Inspirational? Can you imagine that! Another person said she couldn’t believe it had only been 6 months since amputation and how well I was doing. I told her to tell my Mom that cause she’s always been concerned about me being behind the ‘eight ball’ in recovering 🙂 And then there were PLENTY of people crying….WTH?! What in the heck were they crying for? Apparently, I had some effect on those humans!!!

And here’s a picture of me with my perfect score of 210 BLUE ribbon! (no video of that run – boohoo!)

Blue ribbon for a perfect score in Rally of 210!

Not sure how much Rally I’ll do…my Mom is concerned about me not being able to sit so much. I only did 2 runs per day and I handled those purty good, Mom! She’s thinking about putting me in Veteran’s class where the courses are shorter and there is less sitting for us Veterans(not to mention 3 leggers). So I’m up for more adventures!

Rally On!

Maggie