Broken Asher and Padworth

Well it turns out I wasn't being paranoid afterall. Took Asher to Smart on Wednesday and he has got a problem with his right hind leg (same leg he injured before). At some point (I think in hindsight it was when he slipped at training back in Feb) he has damaged his gracilis muscle (inner thigh) which has healed but because of the scar tissue and it not healing in the right way it has left this muscle very tight causing a lump and it is putting a lot of strain on the tendon. This is why he has been slower at flyball as he cannot push strongly off of this leg and is struggling to control his approach to the box. All makes sense now, feel REALLY guilty that I didn't get him looked at before and also massively relieved that I didn't leave it any longer. Apparently if I had waited until the end of the season he could of been looking at a very lengthly lay off. As it is we think it will be 2-3 weeks but I think it's unlikely he'll be back doing flyball until Barbury Castle on 9-10th July. We have lots of exercises to do and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he has made progress when we go back to Smart on Weds. His injury is very common in Whippets and Greyhounds, but our physio said they would have been hopping not walking in, just shows what a tough dog he is, Collies are their own health hazard!

So that leads me to Padworth, despite Asher not being able to run I decided to go anyway to support the team. We had all teams and all people there. Extraset and Rockets ran Saturday.

Extraset dogs (Jemma, Sonny, Smartie, Perry and Jamie) were on fire and annihilated their seed time by running 18.91secs in the 1st race. They went on to win all their races and the division. Jemma was really focused and ran 4.4s in the 1st race and quite consistent 4.5s after that. Sonny's diet and fitness work seems to really be paying off as he ran so much more consistently and had a best time of 4.52secs. Smartie wasn't quite on her usual times but still ran well as did Perry. Jamie also looked really good even managing 5.02secs which is great for him.

Rockets (Diefer, Merlin, Elliot, Bonnie, Loki) were up against some pretty tough competition in Div 2. Overall the team did really well and won 3 of their races to finish 3rd with a best time of 18.40secs. Diefer seems to be getting more confident over 12" and I think we are getting more confidence in him! Merlin was a little inconsistent and seemed quite unsettled. He didn't do anything wrong but his times were quite variable depending on how confident he was going out. Elliot had much better box turns but I think the extra distance and speed he was coming off the box with meant he thought he could run back on a single stride (we taught him to add another stride between box and 1st jump over winter) which wasn't working for him! This meant his run back was slower and he was jumping very high. We will have to put the guide in for him at the next competition. Bassetts were kind enough to let us borrow some soft balls to try Bonnie with which I think helped her but will be something we need to try a few more times to see how much difference it makes. Loki ran great hitting a few 4.2s. Unfortunately their was an incident in the afternoon that shook him up and resulted in him being reluctant to run in the last race of the day. We are hopeful that it was just a blip and he will be fine this weekend. We also hope that the owner of the other dog involved isn't too upset and will be back racing!

We had a great night Saturday. Me, Carol and Mark took advantage of the playground on site which was very fun but I am now covered in a ridiculous amount of bruises and I only remember how I got 1 of them! This meant I really wasn't with it Sunday (no change there!), probably a good job I wasn't running a dog!

After a beautiful day Saturday we were greeted by lots of rain on Sunday. Missiles and Ballistics were running. I wasn't up in time for missiles morning racing but I saw them in the afternoon and they looked good. Ruby continues to improve and I don't think it'll be too long before she's catching reliably. I think she could be a quick little height dog when she does. They won 2 of their races and finished 3rd.

Ballistics (Piper, Shani, Lacy, Luna) were 3rd seed in div 1. We weren't really too sure what to expect times wise without Asher. They gelled really well together, we decided to try lacy going 3rd as her box turns had been wide running last. Her turns did improve but I don't think she was significantly faster. Luna ran great last though so we will probably keep that order for the time being. They won both their morning races against Shooting Stars and Shooting Star Comets with a best time of 17.16secs which we were really pleased with. Unfortunately as the day went on the rain got harder and the ground more slippery so the decision was made to call off the racing before Ballistics raced again.

We're off to Basingstoke this weekend, another new venue so be interesting to see what its like. Again Asher's not running but I think I will be running Elliot!