The issue with his feet is - and I unfortunately can never remember the technical term for it - that he is missing a joint in the outside toe on both front paws. I took him to a vet when he was young and the moment she saw it, she said "Oh, he has such-and-such" but I cannot recall the name. She said she saw it running very strongly in lines in dachshunds. It's not something that appears anywhere else in Auggie's family on either side. No litter mates have it, no parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or siblings anywhere else in the line... just Auggie. He apparently got EXACTLY the right mix of recessive genes that it turned up in him and only him. It's really weird.
We aren't really sure how much it does or doesn't affect him. It doesn't slow him down at all when he plays, it doesn't seem to hurt him. He did develop a habit of standing slightly different on one leg because of it (he kind of rocks his paw in, away from the short toe) but the jury is still out on if it really has any negative affects on him running. That was our first concern when we knew what was going on, but the vet that saw him assured us she doubted he would be affected by it. We do consider him our special little Auggie because of it, though.
Day 2 went... not good. I tried to get him really fired up beforehand, and when he got going it seemed good at first... he took the jump, then a tire jump, and then we came to the a-frame (his favourite thing!) Now, a LOT of dogs were having issues with that a-frame. I don't know if it was the spacing from the tire to the frame wasn't quite right, or if they weren't judging it right because of the mats on the floor combined with the white walls of the building, but very few dogs were taking the a-frame, let alone taking it with the momentum to get up and over. I didn't expect there'd be a problem... but Auggie pulled off and refused it. Then he did something he's never done. He turned around and walked back towards where we entered the ring. I'm not sure if he was going there because he found some interesting smells before we got in the ring and he decided that was more interesting, or because the dog behind us was interesting... but he has never done that before. I got him back to me and he did a few things again, then turned again and tried to walk out of the ring.
I think that was basically his way of saying "I'm done, Mom... really. I'm done."
I waved at the judge that we were done and picked him up and left the ring. I sat there for a long time trying to decide what to do. My gut said to pull him from JWW but I was there with another student and I didn't want her to think she shouldn't run or something. So it was a relief when, after her run, she said "I don't think I want to run him in jumpers... I think something is going on and I don't want to run him." Thank God she had the same idea I did.
So I pulled Auggie for the first time ever, did not run JWW, packed up, and went home. I don't regret it. Yeah, it would be nice to know for sure if I made the right decision, but he did not seem to be having an ounce of fun out there in standard, so to me it was not worth it to try and make him perform again.
No agility for a while. We are going to start herding practice with him instead. I wanted to anyway but wasn't sure how to juggle agility AND herding at the same time, so this is just the opportunity I wanted. My mom said yesterday that the good thing is, we know it's not his hips or anything, since his OFA results came back good.
When we get back into it, we'll just run preferred. I probably should have made that decision earlier but I wasn't sure, I wasn't comfortable with it yet. Now I know without a shadow of a doubt that it's the right thing to do. 16 inch jump heights are just too much for him. He is just plain not that tall and would never be running that height if the darn judge hadn't taken her measurement AFTER acknowledging he was trembling like a leaf on the table. If we can't challenge the measurement and get his height card fixed to have us running regular in 12, then we will just forever run preferred. It doesn't really matter. When he loves it, he loves it... so no reason to quit entirely.
