Senior corgis competing in agility
I'm doing agility with a pair of 8.7 yr olds.
Ringo is over 9 and going strong.
My Pem, Mandy is still doing agility at 10 1⁄2 years old. We have been at it for
a long time and she loves it and hasn't shown any sign of slowing down yet. She
got her MXJ last April and has 5 more legs in Excellent B to get her MX title.
This subject is a fascinating one, I retired Shadow at the at of 11 1/2
(after his last run at the AKC agility national this past spring).
Trystan will be 12 years old in a couple of weeks and he is still
competing. He finished his MACH5 in August and has 7 more QQs. And he's
still often in the ribbons 'cause "speed kills" ya know
was his best year competing - earning a MACH3 and MACH4 and 38 QQs.
Allie finished her MACH3 in mid-May, and turned 12 on June 4.? In December last
year she completed her APD.
You can do this! My Angel (bridge last year at almost 16) finished her MACh at
13.
Merlin retired at 10 1/2 when he started showing signs of DM.
He wasn't headed for a Mach; he'd have been lucky to make it to his C-Tatch (Enthusiast CATCH) in CPE as he was just going into Level 4 when he stopped Q'ing. But he loved it and I loved it and DM stopped us from doing it- and moreover, is stopping me from taking Jack to agility trials even though he is young and healthy. (What do I do with Merlin who needs lots of care if I go off with Jack?)
2 comments:
This is a good point. It annoys me that people refer to DM as an old dog's disease. If you expect your corgi to live into his/her teens and continue to do performance sports, how is being diagnosed with DM at 10 old?
I know there are still a lot of questions in the Cardigan community - a lot of dogs that test At Risk do not appear to come down with DM. I think it is much too early to say you shouldn't test.
I have been lurking and reading your blog. I think it is wonderful that you are willing and able to blog about this difficult experience. It breaks my heart that anyone must go through this with their dog.
One breeder suggested that performance people were asking too much to have dogs still running after 7 or 8 and they should just all be retired. I guess she thought then DM would no longer be a problem?
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