The Early Years

I was adopted by my mom when I was 8 weeks old....or rather, I should say, I adopted her. I don't know what it was, but the first time I saw her, I just KNEW I had to go home with her, so I was my most charming, and threw the best tantrums, until she agreed!!

The first new friend I got to meet was Joey, a red and white boy beagle who mom had adopted about 5 years before I came along. I just batted my beautiful brown eyes at him, and he fell in love with me. I could do anything I wanted to with him....bite him, annoy him, steal his chewies and even his supper, and he wouldn't mind!! I will admit now that I did take advantage of him...but as they say, all's fair in love!

Next, I got to meet Jessie...another beagle, white and black, who was the queen of the house...or so she told me. When I met her, she was 11 years old, and let me know that she had no time for me....if I left her alone, she'd leave me alone. Ok, I went with that. After all, I had Joey.

We also had a cat...Sugar. He was very old...16 I think. At first, I thought he was nothing but a fuzzy chew toy, but he set me straight pretty fast....OUCH!!
Now I know enough to leave cats alone!!

My first years with mom were busy....she was training me for obedience competition, and a friend of hers was helping me learn agility. We spent alot of time training, then I got to travel all over and show what I knew. I earned lots of titles, in both obedience and agility, and lots of ribbons. I learned that blue ribbons were the best, and were given to the dogs that ran the fastest without making a mistake in agility, and in obedience the dogs that did everything they were told to do perfectly got more ribbons, so I really tried my hardest. I got alot of blue ribbons in agility, not so many in obedience (its so hard to be good all the time!).

Then one day, we went to an agility trial and when we got there it was raining. The people running the trial worked really hard to make it safe for us dogs, wiping off the equipment, and putting straw down in muddy spots so we wouldn't slip too bad, and mom and her friend decided that they were going to slow it down today, just finish the course, don't run too fast. We did run alot slower than usual, but even with all the care being taken, I slipped coming off a jump, and suddenly my back hurt pretty bad. There was only one jump left, so I took it, but already my people knew something was wrong. There was a vet on site, he checked my back and said he thought we should get some x-rays done, so we went home and mom called the vet and got me in the next day. (By the way, before we left the trial, we found out I had won the class, and finished my Ex title...yippee! another blue ribbon!!)
Anyway, we went to the vet's, and by then my back was so sore my mom wouldn't let me walk, she carried me in. He took me in a back room, and laid me down, and pushed buttons on this machine, then took me back to my mom. When he brought the X-rays back out, he told my mom that I had a mildly herniated disc in my back, and I would need several months of complete rest and some meds before we could try any running or jumping again.

It was really hard to stay quiet for that long, but Joey and even Jessie helped me. They kept me company, and would cuddle up with me. Joey and I even started playing a "quiet game" of tug of war with one of our stuffed toys, while laying down.

After the 2 months was up, we tried going back to the agility, and also obedience, I had finished my Open titles and was training in Utility when the accident happened, and there are jumps in utility, so we had to stop that training too. Unfortunately, my back started hurting again, so back to the vet's we went. He said he could try surgery (!!!) but there was only a 50% chance he would do any good, or we could just moniter it, but there could be no more running and jumping. My mom said she wanted me to be comfortable for the rest of my life, so as much as we both enjoyed the obedience and agility, she was going to retire me from them, and I could just be a dog.


Stay tuned for chapter 2.....the traveling years!!