Our Vienna Adventure

After visiting the vet at Vienna Veterinary Faculty Java’s wrist remains a bit of a mystery. We went to do the ultrasound and as soon as the vet saw Java’s wrist she said it would be a waste of money to do it because her wrist isn’t swollen (not even a little). She did say that from X-rays I brought her it looks like it could be a tendinopathy on the flexor of the 1st toe. If there would be a persistent lameness a part would have to be severed surgically and that would solve the lameness. She would be able to run and do agility afterwards. But she isn’t lame and the only time she was limping was right after running into the ditch.

But there is also good news: I let Java run free in the park and also did some agility with her and her wrist was just fine 🙂 I guess it’s also possible that it’s healed by now (it’s been four months), but I will try to keep her from sprinting for a while.

The One Mind Dogs seminar was awesome! It was information overload for me, but I didn’t mind, as long as something stays in my memory I’m happy 🙂 I tried to write down as much as possible, but of course there are many things that slipped by me. I learned that Slovenian English accent is easily recognizable because so many people know Silvia Trkman’s English and apparently mine is the same (well duh – we’re from the same city). Someone even asked me if I was related to Silvia and didn’t look entirely convinced when I told him I wasn’t 😀 Though in Slovenia we sometimes joke that everyone is related to everyone else because the country is so small, so I guess in a way he was right. I just wish those genes would show up in my handling 😛

Java relaxing while other dogs run agility

I loved Janita’s and Jaakko’s style of teaching. It seemed really logical and well thought through. No two people think exactly the same, so it was also interesting to listen to one and the other explain course choices and focus on slightly different things. While those who had working spots were running the course I was alternately listening in and going back to Java to keep her quiet for longer and longer periods of time. She wanted in on the action, and when she wants something she can be really loud, but with occasional treat she did really well (I used differential reinforcement of other behavior to stop her from barking and whining). The day was very hot and I didn’t want to leave her in the car even with door open, so I kept her in a shade by the course. Luckily there was water for dogs to cool in so I took her there periodically. The first time she was a little skeptic about jumping in, but afterwards she started pulling there as soon as she realized we’re heading for the water 🙂

By the end of the second day Java was really fed up with just hanging around. When the official training was over I warmed her up, lowered the bars to 20cm and did short obstacle sequences on Jaakko’s course. It was very challenging for us, but apparently it’s possible to learn something by watching, because we did things we could never do before 🙂 Java was barking like crazy and flying through the course. I even asked Jaakko to handle her for a sequence, and he did! He had a hard time keeping up with her because she didn’t send to obstacles as well for him as she does for me and those little 20cm jumps were not slowing her down much. That was fun to watch 🙂

In short, Vienna was great. We met wonderful people, made new friends, learned a lot, my health held up, Java’s wrist was great, and we did some agility after a long time. Perfect four days!

Time for bed now. I will write more about the seminar in the next blog post.

Java calmly watching ducks at the park! Success 🙂