Tiny Little Black Nail

As I mentioned before, Tani injured her nail in Switzerland. Unfortunately she managed to lick the wound and it got badly infected. The nail broke and when it almost healed, she broke it again jumping on my bed - only this time she also pulled a big chunk of her finger off, together with the newly grown nail. The vet suggested amputation and assured me that it wouldn't affect her movement because it's the first finger above the paw and she doesn't really use it. But I felt weird about cutting it off, it just didn't seem right so I decided to wait. It's been very hard to keep her still, change her bandages every day and restrain her from agility, but I believe I made the right decision not to put her under anesthesia and just cut her if it wasn't absolutely necessary.

The nail is now growing back, the finger has already grown back as well and she is more than happy to be back in training. Of course, we're going to take it easy after such long break, and since the new nail is still very thin and fragile we defenitely don't want to injure it again. So we're only doing low jumps and tunnels for now, which gives me the perfect opportunity to work on some things that I always planned to do and never did, such as improving our distance work, obstacle vs. handler focus and trying to make her even faster than she already is. So we're inventing little games to make her run fast (for now only on flat ground where she can't bump into anything, and she has a shoe on while training) and I'm getting Silvia Trkman's new DVD on speed and conditioning which came in the perfect timing for us. I'm sure we'll both benefit from all of this :) I had a lot of time to think about how lucky I really am to be blessed with such wonderful dogs, so I think next time you see me in the ring, I'll be a lot more relaxed and present in the moment.



And well, last but not least, it's not really about Tani but I totally have to brag with my awesome puppy class and rally-obedience students who made me extremely proud on exams last week. It was really nice to see such great work and such a beautiful bond between them and their dogs. Congratulations and I hope you'll all keep clicking for many years to come :)