Knee Injury. I Am Not Happy.

Laev came up lame last week, having (I believe) slipped on wet grass. We took it easy for a few days, and when she didn't improve (she had only a very mild limp, not noticeable to most, but it was persistent) I took her to the vet. The verdict was that she had no discernible serious injury, and I should give her a bit of anti-inflammatory and continue to work her for short periods. I asked specifically about the work, as bitework is a full-contact sport, but I was assured it would be okay.

The anti-inflammatory seemed to do the trick, as Laev was no longer limping after a couple of days. I took her to training Monday night and she did short but happy obedience. I outlined a short bitework session consisting primarily of transports to avoid long runs and smashing into the helper. I thought we had a good plan.

But first I did a blind search. Laev heeled wonderfully to set up and sat at heel, one of her hardest exercises (how can the simple setup be hardest?). Beautiful. I sent her and she went pretty wide around the first blind; I made a mental note that I'll have to train a tighter turn. I sent her to the second blind, where the bad guy was hidden, and Laev shot right past it...! It almost looked as if she made no attempt to turn, but her enraged barking as she went by revealed her anger and frustration. She hadn't been able to make the turn, and she knew he would escape... as he did, because I'd given him instructions to do so just as an exercise for her. She did manage to turn and catch him, but obviously her knee was not up to making a sharp turn at high speed.

I finished the session with our short, safe exercises I'd planned (and Laev did even better than expected, good girl!), but I was upset. No more turns and no jumping for a long while. I'm not going to risk a more serious injury 'til we know exactly what is going on here.

We will of course take this at Laev's pace.  But I am going to be very peeved if I manage to finally conquer our gunfire issue and then cannot compete and title due to a soft tissue injury.