Miss Kirra
AGE: 13
CONDITION: Performance
LOCATION: AUS
"The x rays showed beautiful knees and no evidence of significant arthritic changes"
An Update from Barb!
Miss Kirra, my agility girl who retired from agility competition just before her 13th birthday (still able to qualify in Master if I didn't mess up) has now had her 15th birthday. She is showing her age in having 'senior' moments, and sleeping a lot, but if there's training going on, she's wanting to join in. She's been doing weekly underwater treadmill sessions for the last couple of months, and is now doing 20 minutes just fairly slow speed, but very steady, and she enjoys it. She has occasional treatments for a little lumbar sacral soreness, but we're working on that.
My boy is technically a senior, at 8.5 years old, but still running agility very happily and speedily, and is also competing in obedience. He was the first dog in Tasmania to gain his Rally O Champion in 2016. We had a scare in October, when he was slightly non weight bearing on his left hind leg. He was diagnosed by a couple of vets with probable partial Cranial Cruciate Ligament tear, and was scheduled for surgery, after a 3 week rest/anti inflammatory period waiting for our vet to be back for surgery. Fortunately, with the dog anaesthetized, he could find no evidence of CCL tear, so we took the opportunity to ray knees, and for good measure, hips (for comparison with × rays done over 6 years ago.). The x rays showed beautiful knees and no evidence of significant arthritic changes. Rory has been managed reasonably conservatively, and has always done some fitness and conditioning work, in addition to taking his RHCV. I've rehabbed him carefully after that scare, and he's not back in full competition.
Thanks again to you and to RHCV.
