Not so Gracefully Retired Agility Dogs:
I had to retire my 10 year old Vallhund Darby last year due to a compressed disk in her neck. She was my senior agility dog; we had that comfortable teamwork developed over years and we loved to run agility together. But her long term comfort required me to make the choice to stop agility. I intended to continue doing rally obedience with her to keep her active and her mind engaged. We managed to finish our APDT Rally ARCHX, but it became very apparent that left turns, particularly 270’s and 360’s were uncomfortable. She started to avoid or abort most left turns. It was hard for me to completely retire her, but I did.
The problem was, Darby and retirement didn’t seem to agree with each other. She still wanted to play and I was not being very successful at finding things we could do together that kept her active and kept her very active mind engaged but did not require anything that bothered her physically.
A New and Growing K9 Sport:
Recently, a friend of mine started teaching K9 Nosework classes. The classes were close by and I decided to try the beginner class with my young male who I’m hoping to train and compete through Utility. She suggested that the work would help him with scent articles and I’m always up for learning something new. At the last minute I decided to take Darby instead, figuring I could teach him what I learned with her.
Darby was overjoyed. She got to be THE dog again and go to class with me. She took to it immediately and learned to search and use her nose by the second try. We did four box searches and by the end of class my old girl was sitting there, with bright eyes, her tongue lolling out to the side of her mouth and grinning from ear to ear. She was back to work.
Tags: Agility, Nosework, Retirement