Here’s a post-surgery movie of BB at about the 4 months point. He looks pretty good and flies through the woods at his usual speed, but still needs a lot of strengthening and conditioning. I won’t work him at night until the Spring since it’s not worth risking injury at this point. Now at the 6 month point, he tires at about 2 hours of strenuous activity. No where near the 4-6 hours from before. But yesterday he scaled up-and-down a 6-foot vertical drop into a stream bed — so I continue to see progress.
I cut this movie down to eliminate long boring parts of me tromping through the woods. The whole thing took about 8 minutes. The subject was about 500 feet from where the dog blasted off to make the find. We had a really nice breeze so it was an easy problem. So I didn’t see much until about his 3rd re-find (a re-find is where the dog attempts to unite the handler with the subject, the dog often goes back and forth between the handler and subject until they are together).
This was the first problem where anyone ever said that "BB sneaked up". A 90 pound shepherd running through crinkly leaves rarely sneaks up on anyone. :-)
BB had back surgery in June. He had 4 ruptured disks repaired.
The injuries were caused by his crazy exuberance in play — he’s an over-the-top dog who loves to play despite his large size and relative clumsiness (he’s had a few nasty rolls and slides retrieving toys). It took a while for me to realize he was so badly injured. He was still searching, playing, climbing and, generally, being a nuisance. But after the surgery, it was clear to see he was feeling much better — the deterioration had been slow enough I had though the changes were more due to aging or other, lesser injuries. I made a flickr album that shows some post-surgery shots and also a few shots of his water therapy.
For two weeks after surgery, BB was strictly crated. But after that I took him swimming.
For 4 weeks, I walked him in the water and then tossed balls for him. After that, he was strong enough to plow in from shore. This is a movie of his water therapy at about 2 months after surgery.
Notice Zooey working very hard to train me to come into the water to get the ball.
She’s an incredibly patient human trainer. It was helpful to take them together to swim. They are a bit competitive and both work harder when they feel they are competing to get the ball.
It’s been about 5 months now and BB is recovering well and gaining strength. I don’t think we’ll be playing retrieve anywhere else but the water now!