I know it seems like a strange title but after Saturday night I left a trial feeling completely awful that I put my dog in a position that became extremely dangerous for her. And I'm soooooooo thankful that she didn't break anything and will hopefully not have any lasting fears, other than some bruising.
Any equipment has the potential to be dangerous, but I think contacts due to their height as well as the width of the dogwalk are particularly so. I won't mention adding a bit of rain but I'm sure you can imagine it doesn't get any safer. We as competitors, as well as the judges who design the courses really need to look at the approaches to these obsticles. I'd like to make it clear that I DO NOT want a smaller / wider dogwalk, nor do I want to be expected to slow my dog down, what I'd like is consideration taken to the dogs path and how it will approach these obsticles.
Liryk is quick, she can do an ANKC or ADAA dogwalk anywhere between 1.2 and 1.4 seconds. Her ability to do an obsticle at this speed still blows my mind, but to expect her to hang onto something that is barely the width of a ruler from an angled approach is just scary. Yes I should have straightened her up, but things happen in a blink of an eye and to put that possible risk into the scenario, is just asking for an accident to happen. And one that I will be EXTREMELY careful NOT to do to my dog again.
I didn't see her fall, but the thud that I heard and the rush of people into the ring, let alone the horrified look on her poor little face still upsets me when I think about it. Thankyou to everyone who asked or came to see if she was okay, but most of all thankyou to Jules who came and calmed me down and walked Liryk out, so glad you were there buddy! And to Dr Deb Nook who made sure she was okay.
Our dogs trust us, I think it's only fair that we look out for them and keep them safe.
Posts
Happy to hear she is OK. Equipment danger is underrated by judges. Last weekend I saw 3 terrible tyre crashes in a row (lucky it was a break apart tyre) and the weekend before 2 dogs flip and roll öut of a sack tunnel shoot (voted by me as most unrecognised dangerous obstacle). These were just at a slight angle to the jumps either side but that was enough to case big trouble. With modern courses and tight jump turns I will not be suprised if we start to see more back injuries. Have to ask if this level of difficulty is really necessary?
ReplyDelete