Oh Yeah, You Blend

Thanks to weather and the NYS Thruway being closed because of it, we only made it to Edinboro for one day of this weekend’s trial, leaving at 5 AM today. Well, it was worth the drive! Zhora earned her first AX (Excellent Standard) leg with a great run where she saved her weave poles after a wonky entry because she was headed to another piece of equipment, she ALMOST got her first MXJ (Master Jumpers) leg, but knocked a bar after looking to see what some spectators were doing. Nina tried to give me a heart attack by doing the dogwalk on three legs (I HATE dogwalk entries that are a hard turn like this was, I think it’s very unsafe), and was so insane about being back to agility after a month off that she knocked FOUR BARS in Jumpers. She redeemed herself somewhat by winning Time 2 Beat, but wow…she scared me in Standard! Judge Barbara Bounds was very nice, and came up to me to ask if I knew Krista Hill who also has Vallhunds!

Zhora Master Jumpers (NQ but a very nice run):

Nina Time 2 Beat (Q and 10 points for winning the class, you can see how wired she was!):

Nina Master Standard (heart attack-inducing dogwalk, I should have pushed more to the wall and then turned):

Zhora Excellent Standard (AX leg #1!):

As you may have seen elsewhere on the Intarwebs (even on CNN, since the gene involved relates to a form of human blindness), there has been a breakthrough in the research into Swedish Vallhund Retinopathy, and it looks like we will have a genetic test available in the spring! However, it looks like it’s not as simple in terms of inheritance as was thought previously, and there must be other factors involved in whether or not dogs actually develop the issue, since not all dogs who are at risk genetically actually develop the problem, and even dogs who have two normal copies of the relevant gene still seem to have a minor risk of developing the retinopathy (4.7% of the retinopathy-affected dogs in the study had two normal copies of the relevant gene). As has always been the case, many to most stage 1 affected dogs do not get worse, and seem to have no problem with their vision, and comparatively few affected dogs seem to progress to stage 3, and of those dogs, very few go fully blind.

Retinopathy_research_letter

Here are the professional videos from the Invitational.

Time 2 Beat:

Round 1 Standard (in which Nina goes berserk!):

Round 2 Jumpers (our only Q, they missed the start, oh well, 9th out of 100 baby!):

Round 3 Jumpers:

Round 4 Hybrid: