Sunday 30 January 2011

Fitness Fanatic!

From the title of this post - you know that it certainly doesnt relate to me (though it probably should do, to try and keep up with her in the heady heights of grade 6 this year!), so of course it must be little Kiah. She's always been a power pack, very solid, full of muscle and very powerful when she needs and wants to be, so I think she is the real muscles from Brussels! She is certainly not in any way 'old' or injured but the fact that she is SO mad at agility makes me think I should just help her out as much as I possibly and realistically can...

So even though we have had a couple of weeks back at training, after the 6 or so weeks off over winter I think it is only fair to bring her back in to agility slowly, you wouldn't ask an athlete to run a marathon without any training or preparation. Obviously on a daily basis she has her usual walkies where she is always running around or playing with Davy, but I want to help her additionally too, not that I wasn't before, but just to improve her life that little bit more.

Health wise Kiah has had a couple of visits to the chiropractor, she has been for a visit to the vet to ensure her spine and muscles are strong and healthy (they are) and I have been taking her to hydrotherapy once a week, not for any problems, but just a low impact exercise to improve her fitness - it is amazing how much they have to work but just after two visits so far she is barely even worn out afterwards. I think Kiah is starting to enjoy it a bit more too, she's only being held in the harness as she's not yet quite confident enough to swim around the pool on her own!! The videos we took unfortunately were too dark to see, so here's a picture of her swimming instead - with the headless assistant lol - the photo wasn't intentionally taken like that!!

Diet wise I have changed a few things around too - slowly and within reason of course to ensure I don't upset her digestion, but she now gets a supplement full of glucosamine and chondroitin for her joints, liquid vitamin C, evening primrose oil for her coat, and echinacea to improve her immune system too. The biggest change for her is her food though - I refuse point blank to pay over £50 for a 15kg bag of Royal canin, I wish that they would stop with all the marketing 'freebie' toys, bowls, naff plastic weaves, blankets, towels etc and just lower the prices instead, how ridiculous is that!! But it's their loss and after hearing many good reports, I am phasing out the old, and moving both Kiah and Davy onto CSJ CP24 - I have found a fab stockist really near to us which is great, and so far it really suits them. So forwards with a better and more positive outlook for the coming year agility wise!

In personal non-doggy (heaven forfend, only slightly I suppose!) news, poor Alex has been made redundant from his job after less than a year as the company is not doing very well at all thanks to the poor management, but more positively - he has found another job and starts that in a couple of weeks, quite a lot nearer to home and using his natural fluency skill of two foreign languages, so I think he is looking forward to that. My job is still as busy as ever, I guess that is a good thing in the construction industry at the moment - but sometimes it would be nice to just have a job that isn't quite so serious and you don't have to think about quite so much! Our other 'maybe' plan is to move house, still staying in the same area but a bigger and better organised house layout, maybe semi detached and with a bigger garden for the dogs, we're currently looking around to see what's out there... So onwards and upwards again with work and home life - it possibly could be a very busy year for us!!

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