Implementing A Safety Awareness Program

If you don’t know, my real life job is in Human Resources.  (I’m so curious as to people’s reactions- does it ‘fit’? Did you see that coming?)  While I really try to avoid cross contamination of real life and dog life, I think for once my real life could be of some assistance.

You see, dog life has seen a recent significant rise in injuries and incidents.  What better way to tamp down and cut injury-related costs than to implement a new procedure? After all, Professional Me is a procedure making and enforcing MACHINE.

One of the things that we HR people love to do in a new procedure campaign is to make signs. It’s second only to sending out memos.  So I’ve made this sign to create awareness of our little problem, and to acknowledge the success…if there is any:

Anyways, the procedure is pretty simple. If I sent a memo, it would consist of “Attention all Dogs and Pups. Stop getting hurt. Hurting each other and hurting yourselves is no longer permitted. Thank you for your compliance.”

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The most recent issue was The Pup. I found a bump on her leg last Monday.  By Wednesday the bump became The Bump (very large and angry looking). Though it didn’t seem to bother her it bothered me. I made an appointment for Thursday.  Not fast enough for her I guess- while I was at work that day she attempted to self-amputate The Bump. 

The Bump (or what is left of him), it turns out, is a histiocytoma. Basically, puppies are growing so much that the cells just start manifesting into an odd little mass for lack of anything else to do. This mass would go away in a month or two, if she leaves him alone. Hence:

I am sure some of you are wondering what The Bump looks like- pretty gross actually. So to spare you, a dramatic interpretation:

Before: 

After:

Don’t worry about The Pup though. She loves her cone.

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The Dog, as we know, has also had her share of contributing injuries.  She has seemed just a stitch ‘off’ since the appearance of the ‘coffee table ding’ and the Great Broad Jump Crash of 2011.  (Occasionally coming up lame after a rough play with the ball and knocking more bars than is typical for her in practice.)  I’ve always been wary of the canine chiro/massage New Age Mumbo Jumbo (what if some unqualified voodoo doctor hurts my dog???), but decided that since the trial we went to was bringing in a real life vet from TOPS rehab to do chiro we would give it a whirl.  

Sold. Give us Mumbo Jumbo any day. Apparently The Dog was ‘out’ in ways to suggest the coffee table ding DID have something to do with it.  The vet was also able to tell how she tugs and the fact that she’s been tugging lopsided with The Pup based on the way her neck and jaw had shifted.  So she popped everything back into place and off we went on our merry, well-adjusted way.

Reasons I am sold: besides the vet being able to tell what happened without ME telling her first (not fishing for hints a la John Williams on the ghost psychic show), The Dog sat through it and let a STRANGER touch her (WOW.), which tells me it felt good at least, and the biggest reason? The magically good way The Dog ran all weekend.  She was…light? I hadn’t realized how awkward she had been looking until I saw ‘normal’ again. Back to feather jumping and showing good confidence on weave entries, Aframe and teeter.  Now the question is… where can I get good, reliable (licensed!) Mumbo Jumbo in MN?

So yeah. It goes without saying at this point (but I will say it anyways) that we had a REALLY good weekend.  I was thrilled to the point of giddy at how well The Dog ran. This was a pretty big show with a good size, FAST 22” class and The Dog was sitting well in placements all weekend. (Many Top Ten points! Hooray!) Saturday was probably her Best Day Ever. It honestly might make me a bit teary to dwell on it so I’ll just say she ran as FAST as anyone and the ever sought after TEAM component was there in spades.  She is finally having fun I think, and I’m finally trusting her.  Sunday she was wired all day (not complaining) and things weren’t quite on the same page (still not complaining), but it was still nice to see her running her butt off to the very end (of what was a looooonnngggg day of running).

Looking at her records, she finished her Silver Snookers title thing, and overall she knocked out 8 more Qs for her Bronze LAA- down to just 15 left of anything. And TWO of those Qs were second place Standard runs…could my dream of being able to run Standard (well, and not like a runaway train…with a bomb on it…heading for a metropolis) finally be coming true???

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To close, Puppy Fun Time (picture compliments of Katie H. Thanks for some pictures of the Velociraptor that aren’t blurry!!!), because who doesn’t love Puppy Fun Time? 

My favorite, illustrating the Velociraptor:

On Target Family Reunion!