Day 35, out of 90, slowly dragging by.  Everyday, when I sit on the floor and do Peep’s range of motion stretches, I wonder if we will return to agility.  Not because of the recovery, I am sure it will be 100%, but more because I don’t want to have to go through this again.  I wish I could explain to Peep, that the crate rest isn’t forever and everyday puts us closer to do things together again.  I wish I knew how he injured himself in the first place, I have watched videos and thought about it and I just can’t figure it out.  I’m pretty sure Clean Run doesn’t sell bubble wrap for agility dogs, if they did I would buy all of it.  

I know that warming up, stretching and cooling down really helps prevent injury and I did all of those things, but accidents happen and agility is inherently tough on dogs.  Are there more shoulder and psoas injuries now a days or are we just better at diagnosing them?  It seems like there are more, so that means something about how we are doing agility is breaking dogs.  I hate to think that I broke Peep, but I am responsible for his agility career and the choices I made were obviously tough on him (and he is also tough on his own body).  I love agility but I worry about injuries more now, and we keep trying to go faster and tighter, that’s the game, right??  But now, when I sit on the floor doing stretches, I wonder if it was worth it and I debate if Peep and I will get back out there.  

On a positive note, it looks like his recovery is going well, the ultrasound showed him to be right on schedule in the healing process.  We had to drive 4 hours, one direction, for our appointment, there are no local orthopedic vets who do ultrasound.  We had a good experience at Las Vegas Veterinary Specialty Center with Dr. Mason and Dr. Forney.