Tough Day!

I was really looking forward to a NADAC agility trial this weekend. I have to really pick and choose my dog weekends now with a 3 year old. Friday night, Patriot was throwing up. He is a master at getting into the trash and compost. Saturday morning, he did not eat so I was wondering if he would be up for running agility. Sure enough, his first run was really bad so I ended early. I scratched him for his next run and he later ran 2 runs. No Q's but we had some good runs. Wyatt and I had some dogwalk issues so did not get our standard (regular) runs, which we need for his NADAC agility championship. We had a great tunnelers run where he did not look back at me at all and we got a Q and a 4th with a speed of 4 yards per second. We also had a great Weavers run. Weavers has tunnels and 3 sets of 12 weave poles. It is really hard to make time at the Elite level. You can't have a single mistake and the weaves have to be fast. We had 3 great weave entries and I sped him up in the weaves as much as I could without pulling him off. We ended up getting a Q and a first place over some really fast dogs. One more Q for our elite weavers title.

I was really looking forward to Sunday but Wyatt came up lame after our first Touch and Go run where we really worked the dog walk. He did great but came off lame. I scratching him and weavers but he was still lame later so we have to scratch 5 runs and I also scratched Patriot's 3 others runs and headed home. I just hate to see Wyatt lame and limping! We rested him up and were ready for bed so I went to let them out around 9:30. As soon as I opened the door, Wyatt left off the top of the back stairs and went barking and running full speed towards the side woods and fence. Patriot followed. We heard some "screams" and ran out as fast as we could with pepper spray and flashlights. There was Patriot with 6 quills in his face and Wyatt with about 30 quilss looking very shell shocked. He was also holding up his injured paw. Pathetic! Dawn removed the 6 quills from Patriot and I drove Wyatt 15 minutes to the emergency 24 hour vet hospital. They had a critical case so I had to wait a long time. They put him under and took out the quills and did not see anything but a slight limp. I got home around 1 to find Aidan wet so I had to change his sheets. He was not too happy to have to wait for his bed.

We are doing better today. Wyatt is very mellow and resting up. I think he will be fine. Quite a day! Wish those porcupines would stay on their side of the fence. We use deer fence so once in a great while they will climb up a fence tree and wander off. Patriot got quilled before but this was Wyatt's first. He is a such a kamikaze!