He’s a working Dog Part II

by Tom Antion

Apparently personal protection dogs aren’t robotic metal machines (although I did hear that some war dogs have titanium teeth). No one will say this for sure and everyone’s being nice about it, but it looks to me like I pushed Rubix too hard on the non-forgiving tennis court surface. I’m ashamed to say it was actually entertaining watching him go crazy after the ball no matter which way it bounced. I even had a ball on a string that purposely did not bounce straight which I thought would be good for his agility.

If you even discounted the hard surface I should have known better. I’ve been in high level sports for years and I know that muscles and joints need rest in between hard workout sessions. Maybe if I’d have just run him three or four days a week instead of seven this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe had I gone to our back yard the surface would have been more forgiving. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe. Who knows?

So the emergency room vet gave Rubix an anti-inflammatory / anti pain drug and told me to keep him calm for a few days and then get “Sedated X-rays” taken by my regular vet.

WHAT? Keep him calm?! . . . What about the working dog thing?, “He needs exercise. “He needs a job.”

The first couple days were tough. Without his normal exercise he was ready to bounce off the wall. He couldn’t sleep which meant I couldn’t sleep.

Thank GOD his leg apparently wasn’t hurt that bad because he was walking around fine and sitting just fine in a day or two. It did force me to figure out things to do on a rainy day to burn up energy in a “working dog”. Check out the video below on how I used my personal protection dogs “hunt drive” (if there is such a thing) to keep him busy.

Rubix is expected to make a full recovery and I learned a good lesson about exercising my dog.

BACK TO “HE’S A WORKING DOG” PART I

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