Ryddick's troubled journey

Little did I know this would become a difficult journey. A journey not everyone is willing to take. Some of it included hatred from local Obedience club officials (but that is another story) .

From the moment I met Ryddick at 6 weeks old I knew I had to have him. I did not know what it was about him, but I just had to have "him". I was offered a few other dogs from the litter that seemed a bit more "normal", but I had this feeling about Ryddick that we were destined for each other.

Ryddick 8 weeks

My heart sank when I brought him home and he was horrified of the other dogs. It wasn't your normal fear of meeting other dogs. It was full blown vicious snarling, barking, lunging, he was horrified. I talked to the breeder and she said he did that with one of the older pups she had bought and added to the litter. I was shocked to hear this. The 4 month old she had purchased was added into the kennel with the 6 week old littler of pups and left to "play" with them. Ryddick got the most attention from this pup. Being so young and defenseless he must have tried all he could to get away from this much bigger puppy. This went on for 2 weeks until I picked him up to take home.

As the days went by he got used to Rylie, Raygen and Ryker and he showed more and more of his personality. He loved to snuggle with me and ran around with the other dogs. He still was not able to meet dogs not in my household without going into a severe rage. He also showed more and more sings of fear of human strangers.

9 weeks, first encounter with small children

 At 9 weeks old he met his first children, a 4 year old girl and 2 year old boy. I only got to about 10 feet near them before he went into a rage. This got progressively worse as he got older. Since children are unpredictable I am not comfortable exposing him to any of them. In puppy class he was not able to play with the other puppies he was so afraid of them. He would freeze and show his most vicious snarl. I implemented a rigorous training and behavior modification program.  At the age of 6 months he was diagnosed with severe Panosteitis in both his rear legs. He was in a lot of pain and this was a huge setback for training and meeting new people and dogs. He would wake up from, what seemed, a deep sleep growling and snarling at his surroundings from fear of being touched. It took months for him to outgrow the Pano. I kept him on pain meds, but they seemed to have little effect. He would wake up in a rage when anyone (people or dogs) would step near him. He was fearful of feet and I had to desensitize him to them. A little cheese-in-a-can goes a long way. Even though he is much more comfortable sleeping around us, he has decided to sleep away from us at night,  in the living room. He has the couch all by himself, a dogs dream.
I have trained him in Obedience, Rally, Agility, and was doing some Flyball drills in my yard and next to Flyball practice. I take him to regular herding lessons during the warmer months.
Agility started out to be a lot of fun with him. He was very responsive to my cues and his first runs in the ring were a dream. I remember the trial when he told me he did not want to do it anymore. Thinking he would overcome his decision, I continued to show him in Agility and it all came crashing down.
In July of 2010, I contacted my vet and talked to her about possibly trying some Fluoxetine (Prozac) on him. This was not an easy decision and having tried changing his diet, herbs, flower essences, aroma therapy, DAP, Calming Cap, T-Touch, Massages, training (and what else is there?) I thought it was time to help him with some western medicine.

He has been on it since August 30th and I have noticed some changes. Instead of going into a frenzy when Rylie and Raygen are playing tug  of war he lays in the grass and watches them. He has significantly calmed down around any of the dogs doing agility in our yard. Herding has become much more enjoyable and less of a roller coaster of  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. My only regret is that I have not put him on the meds sooner.



Ryddick with his friend Chocolate

  Ryddick is very sensitive to touch. He quivers when I put his collar on. He refuses to come near me when I have anything that resembles a coat, harness or halti. One time I though putting on his Cool Coat for herding might help with the heat. It became apparent that he hated the coat and let out his frustration at the sheep.

Ryddick thanking DOG for Prozac

Ryddick has also a medical mystery. His epiglottis is always open and he will choke on food when fed in large amounts,  August 30th Choking incident. Sometimes his saliva will go down the wrong pipe and he gets very concerned when dogs get near him when he coughs. The vet has not been able to explain why the flap is open. At this time I feel that surgically experimenting on him is not necessary since we have managed to keep his food and water intake without any joking incidents for a few years now.

Pocatello AKC Agility

October 1st -3rd we visited Pocatello for an Agility trial. There were many firsts. Raygen got to run in F.A.S.T. Novice preferred and earned his NFP title. One of his runs was 13.41 seconds, with 59 points.
Although he decided to end the run by leaving me for the tunnel who had the time at the end, I like the fast time in which we accumulated 59 points in. Running contacts can definitely take many seconds away form the runs. 
Rylie earned her first Excellent STD leg. She had a lot of fun in JWW however she ran past jumps and weaves is not something that gets her Q's. She was sore on Monday and I have decided that Agility may just be to much for her and retire her to pursue K9 Nosework and also go back to some Freestyle training.
Ryker got to run again for the first time in 13 months. Even though we did not Q, his times were mind boggling. I had some late cues and he was already on to the next obstacle when he realized what I actually asked of him. A spin 'cause he is waiting for me to tell him where to go, knocking a bar 'cause I am cuing to early are only some minor errors I need to iron out somehow. I am hoping that I have his weave entry cue figured out. His problem has always been collection before the weaves, actually the lack of collection. He did get some nice weave entries when I cued weave collection. We will see in future trials.
My motto was run as fast as you can, give him the cues he needs, run like you train with Stacy and the HELL with being afraid. I had more fun running fast and not cuing then running to Q. In the future this may change or not.
And then there was Rydge's first ever trial debut. I had him entered in FAST and JWW. As I entered the ring the first time and took his collar off he perked up and looked at the course. It seemed that he was a bit unsure, but exited at the same time. His first run was JWW and he did everything I asked him to.
FAST was way hard for him. Leaving me five feet to take a jump is sure harder then doing it at home. His second JWW runs was much faster, which I like a lot more. I entered him not expecting to much, but getting Q's as a reward feels nice.
Looking forward to the next trial.

Livin' on the Edge aka Rydge

In January of this year I fostered a little black Toy Poodle. He needed to get neutered and had a mild umbilical hernia that needed to be attended to. He had extreme separation anxiety and still whines a bit when left in his x-pen downstairs. As the weeks passed he changed from this shy little pup to an outgoing, friendly dog.

Ryker ignored him, which was fine with me, as Ryker usually does not like small dogs. Rylie also had no interest in him, at first. I did catch her playing with him one time and it was so dang cute. Rylie does not play much with dogs other than Raygen. Raygen didn't care much about Rydge either.

Ryddick on the other hand loved to play tug with him. He would self handicap lying on his bed and let Rydge pull and pull. Ryddick looked like he was falling a sleep, while the 10lb monster jerked on the tug, letting out a little growl every time he did.

He was operant within a few days. the hardest part was for me to make the treats tiny and to keep up with his insane speed of offering behaviors. I decided to try some Agility with him. It was amazing. 2x2's were a breeze and he weaved in no time. The teeter was also not much of a challenge. Mhh, maybe I should keep him? I have fostered over 70 dogs and I have never kept a dog. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to keep several, but the timing was never right. My daughter accused me of making a dog out of this shy Toy Poodle. A few weeks ago he got to run in Course-A-Lure for the first time and he won a few Bronze Medals with a best time of 16.06.

I don't know what the future will hold for us. Maybe Agility, Rally, Obedience and more Course-A-Lure. I use him in my puppy classes and reactive dog classes and as a decoy dog for BAT sessions. He has a calming effect on dogs like none of my other dogs do. Nothing that can be trained.

Ryker Limping part two

Live has changed since Ryker started limping last year. I have been religiously following my vets advice to continue him on the Water Treadmill and laser therapy.

He loves his water treadmill hour so I did not mind taking him. However his condition did not improve. He was good for a day, then got worse on the next. Then I asked the rehab therapist if I should take him to see the chiropractor. She said that "Why try to fix something if it isn't broken". I did not know what to say. Have they not been listening to me? At that moment I felt I have been used like an endless money bag. I decided to see another vet to retake the x-rays. Remember the original diagnosis was: " ..... evidence of left hind limb hip dysplasia, with mild OA present along the dorsal rim of the acetabulum." " The lumbar spine shows some LS sclerosis which could be indicative of L7 S1 instability."

Well, this vet did not find anything wrong with Ryker's skeletal system. He prescribed some Previcox for him to take for a week, than another week of leash walking only and then, he said, I should be able to start training him again. I felt a bit numb as his words seemed unrealistic. Remember he has a bad hip and spine and some pills won't fix that. Well, they did. I have not seen any lameness since this day. The vets diagnosis was that he may have a mild pinched nerve that gets aggravated sometimes. Seems to make more sense with the symptoms he was showing.

Ryker Limping

Ryker has improved a lot since I last posted. I have taking him to four accupunture sessions, twow accupressure massages and he has been going to visits to the water treadmill twice a week.

He loves the water treadmill. He runs all the to the rehab room and pushes the door open and starts scratching the belt for the treadmill to start. He was in for 5 minutes the first session and worked up to being in for 56 minutes at 1.1 mph. If you ask him he would love to stay in longer. I have not seen him limp for 3 weeks and I have started to let him run around the yard at his own pace, which is a nice canter. So far so good. Maybe I can start training him in agility again in May. I want to make sure that whatever hurt him is fully healed before doing the crazy stuff again.

Ryker is hurt....

..... and we don't know what it is. I took him in for x-rays and was told he had some mild hip dysplasia. I was also told that he had some mild scoliosis in his lower back. I had two other vets look at the x-rays and was told they were of mediocre quality and there was no evidence of hip dysplasia.

I also had him examined by another vet in Salt Lake City. Ryker was not lame at the time and the vet said his gait was beautiful. He also confirmed that he does not have hip dysplasia. He did some leg stretches with Ryker and confirmed that he was uncomfortable stretching his left leg.

He recommended to give him some crate rest and to keep him on the leash to avoid running and jumping. The following week I met with Anita our acupressure massage therapist and she also recommended to keep him in on crate rest for 4 weeks. I have seen very little improvement. Sometimes Ryker comes out of the x-pen normal and other times he keeps his left rear leg up and hobbles around for a few minutes. It is very disconcerting not knowing what is wrong with him. I am not planning on doing anything with him until he is fully healed. I would rather keep him as a healthy pet than to enter him in any more Agility trials. My plan is to let him rest until the end of February, than sign him up for some underwater treadmill sessions. Maybe he will be ready for the USDAA trial in April, but I am in no hurry and will be ready to wait for as long as it takes.

Ryddick and Chocolate

This is Ryddick with his BFF Chocolate. He is a 7 lbs Yorkie/Shi-Tzu mix. Smartes little dog I have ever known.

Gotta Love Me!!

Ryddick and Dexter

Ryddick loves puppies. This is Dexter, who at the time the pictures were taken was 9 weeks old.

Ryddick and Dexter (Corgy)

About the choking incident on August 30th, 2007

Someone on Facebook posted about how to do the Heimlich and CPR on your dog. It brought back a very scary memory about an incident that happened two years ago. Here is the email I wrote to my friends.

This morning, Ryddick, my 15 month old BC, was choking on some of his food and stopped breathing. He was close to loosing consciousness and his live was in our hands. My husband did the Heimlich and I tried to give him breaths into his nose. I could not get any air in. It was closed! His tongue had turned blue and his gums white. He wasn't moving and had this horrified stare into nothingness. My puppy was dying and all we could do was to push on his belly and hope for the best. It took forever, but IT WORKED!!! He recovered within minutes and there seems do be no sing of brain damage. We were so, so, so, sooooo lucky. I guess the Infant and Adult CPR class finally paid off! I am going to invest in a grinder this weekend.
We were very scared. We knew that if we did not succeed he was going to die. That is why it is so important never to leave dogs unattended when they feed. I would have found him dead. I don't ever want to have to do it again, however I know that I can.

My poor Raygen

Today I went to the vet with Raygen and by "accident" he found a growth under Raygen's tongue. It was not there on August 8th, when Raygen had a tooth fixed. Growing that fast is a bit scary. The Dr. took a biopsy and send it in. Results are not going to be available until next week.

Even if it is benign it still has to be taken care of. It is very close to the salivary Gland and

Under Raygen's tongue. Note that the growth looks like two, however it is one with an ulcer in the middle.

This is after the biopsy.

Great Pratice

I had a great Agility practice tonight. Ryker and I where connected. He read my deceleration and acceleration cues perfectly. At one point I decelerated to soon and he was not sure if he should go or not. What a good boy. I did not have enough time to run any of the other dogs. I did get to practice some jump chutes with Ryddick and Ryker this morning. It was nice and cool and they did really great. A bit later Raygen and Rylie both joined in the one jump practice I was doing with Ryddick and Ryker. Raygen was actually working very nice for me. He usually does not want to do much practice. I will try some more in the morning after Sammy and Baxter are done with their private lesson.

No U-FLI Nationals

UTB Flyball Team BOD has decided not to go to U-FLI Nationals this year. A few team members where very angry at the decision. Other than the BOD nobody knows why this decision was made. Frankly, I am to sick and tired to care, maybe I will have some feelings about it later. I canceled my hotel reservation and made peace as much as I can with whatever is happening or going to happen. Can't let this get me down. Great news is that Ryker really doesn't care. He is as happy as a clam. Ready to go play and fetch a toy or swim in the pond or jump over jumps or just sleep. Sure helps when the world keep turning and nothing really matters. My happiness is my dog happiness. Maybe I am trying to hard?

Surprise, Surprise!!!

Today I was pleasantly surprised when I got my mail and found a title certificate from the AKC. I keep track of every leg that we earn and this one must have slipped by me. According to the AKC, Raygen has earned his AXP.
I will double check online to see where he got his first two legs. I will also contact the AKC on Monday to make sure that this is not an error. I sure don't want this to nip us in the butt later.

Ryker earned his AAD and more

This weekend we were entered in the Wasatch USDAA Agility trial in Farmington. We took Friday off since it was the day we got back from C-Spot Win Camp. I am glad I did. I got home at 11pm Thursday evening and the dogs wanted to run around the yard for a while before going to bad.
So, Friday was a slow day, doing laundry, watching the yard getting watered and visiting frinds at the trial.
I decided not to run in all the classes. I split up Ryker and Raygen. Ryker ran in STD Advanced on Saturday and earned his Std title and AAD. Now we can move up in all future trials to Masters classes. Way to go Ryker!!!
Raygen ran in Snookers and Jumpers. I took an off course in Snookers, it was such a nice course. Jumpers was really cool. He Q'ed in that.
On Sunday I had Ryker in Masters Gamblers and Advanced Std. Gamblers was really confusing me for some reason. I ended up taking advice from G and Ryker earned 3rd place. All three dogs that placed were withing 0.50 seconds of each other. Way cool!
Ryker's Std run wasn't as pretty as I failed to see the "serpentine" challenge that included a teeter. The approach to the second jump and teeter was totally wrong and he took an off-course jump. I realized that only after I watched another competitor handled it like a serpentine.
I was so focused on getting Ryker through the Gamblers course that I totally forgot that Raygen was in the same class. I had no plan for him when I entered the ring. For his running style the course was a good one to just run as fast as I could and let him take whatever was in his path without much handling and get the minimum points. Even though Jim Basic was drilling us with some "panic" drills, I messed up and did not take my time getting Raygen set up to get a nice Gamble over the first tow obstacles. He is such a Velcro dog. BUT he got the points.
Also, great news, my battery charger cable has been found, thanks G, and I can finally charge my camera again to take movies and pictures again.

C-Spot Win Camp

C-Spot Win Camp has again been a great success. My electives were with Karen Holik and Stacy Peardot-Goudy. Two days we had 2.5 hours with our elective and then 4 hours with one instructor each..... Stepanie Spyr, Ann Braue, Stacy Peardot-Goudy and Karen Holik.
The courses were challenging and we were pushed to the limit. I would have loved working with all of them more.

Ryker was sore on day two and one of my team mates, Kathy Owens, let me run her awsome dog Johnnie. It was sooo much fun.
Thanks Kathy.

I am looking forward in implementing what I have learned to my Agility classes.
Lots of work to do!

WW Flash Moy of Spunk

Ryker's GGGGrandad Flash Moy of Spunk aka Flash

1994 ONYX

1996 NAFA Hall of Fame

DOCNA at Willow Park

The dogs and I went to Willow Park in Lehi to attend at DOCNA trial. I entered Raygen, Ryker and Ryddick. Rylie is still recovering from her TPLO surgery, however I am hoping to run her the end of the year. Ryddick was entered in one jumpers run each day. He did fabulous on Saturday, however Sunday he knocked a bar and had a major melt down. Ryker handled quite nice through the courses. I was able to do many front crosses, however they are still a bit "loose" due to my timing and him still learning my body cues. It really helps to shut up and not give any verbal cues unless absolutely necessary.
Raygen had major stress issues doing the weaves. We had a heart to heart on Saturday evening and he was great on Sunday at the trial. I used raw beef heart and did some weave pole games with him at home and he went nuts. He is such a food motivated dog.
I really enjoyed Willow Park. My favorite part, there is a pond where I was able to take the dogs swimming to cool off. They loved it.
At the end of the trial Christa picked the winners for the raffles and Ryker was one of the lucky ones to receive a $25 certificate for the next SASS trial. YEAH!!!
New titles

Happy Birthday Ryddick !!!!!

With all your troubles in your early life you turned out to be a very nice dog.

Thank you for being who you are and helping me learn more about the animals (crazy) mind.

Your affection towards people brings out huge smiles into this world.

You are loved; very much!

Ryddick 6-24-06

USDAA Lynnleigh Farms June 2009

This has been a very busy weekend. Ryker performed a crazy A-Frame jump-off. Never has he done this before. Last Standard and Pairs run I insisted that he stop with a 2o2o. He did nicely.
Our team event on Friday was a bust as far a placement went. We ended up winning a rubber chicken for taking the honor of last place. Ryker broke his SLT in Snookers, even after giving him a second chance, that is when I decided to stop him right there. Team or not, if he breaks his stay at the start and I go on, I might as well not have a dog all weekend. It paid off and he did not break another SLS all weekend.
I ran him more like I train and it felt really, really good. My brain is thinking more like: "I can get there vs. I can't get there". Stopping motion, any motion, including blinking eyes is the key. >g<> not blabbering to much. It only confuses him.
The highlight of this 3 day trial was to watch some amazing participants handlers run their dogs.
Stephanie Spyr, Elicia Calhoun, Stacy Peardot-Goudy, Kate Moreaux to name a few. Amazing runs by Emily Snider, Linda Wallace Kipp, Kyle Schumacher and few others that I don't know the names of, was like attending a lecture for free.
The low of this trial was a local handler being quite rough with her dog and got everyone talking. The judge looked on as she jerked her young dog around, "punishing" her. Shame on anyone that stood around watching this, including the Judge, who was thinking about stopping this madness, but opted out of being a judge at that moment. Shame on the handler, too. The handling was terrible and the dog had to make decisions on her own. I hope you can become the person your dogs needs you to be, soon.

Jim Basic

Day 3 Jim Basic Seminar Picture

Jim Basic was invited to give a seminar in Draper. It was all about the Gamblers. I signed up for two days. First day to audit foundation and third day for working Ryker in "Gambler".

Day one was all about the foundation. We do some of the drills in Flyball, which helps Ryker with going on and on and on ahead of me.

Then we did some drills on how to teach the dog our body cue to go out.

Jim set up some simple excercises to challenge the novice dogs a bit more. It was pretty amazing how quikc they caught on.

I was not planning on going to day two. A previous commitment ended up not being planned out and I decided to got to day two and audit some Advanced Distance excercises. I am glad I went as this day was a continuation of day one.

Day three was a working day for Ryker and I. We did some drills over the a-frame, teeter and weaves. We talked about timing the obstacles to determine how many obstacles our dog can take in 30 seconds. Jim helped us to learn to stay calm with some "panic" drills.

Other drills consisted of how tunnels can be taken without adding extra seconds and how sequencing obstacles will help get more valuable time to get more points.

Ryker did good. I did some icky A-frame contacts and I am hoping it won;t affect him at our next trial. I am hoping of going again next year when he comes back.