Agility Dog Association of Australia Ltd

Cooper's Story ~ by Sam Bois

The recent agility competition at PADS rates in my mind as one of the most satisfying and rewarding competitions I have ever attended and probably will be for a very long time. Why you ask? Well, I didn’t win a competition and I didn’t earn a title but I did accomplish a feat that only 12 months ago was way out of reach. Here’s why:

In December 2000, Marty and I bought home Buckley, a brother for Jemma, our “only child” of 5 years. Marty had taken a liking to Aussie Shepherds and I knew as soon as he laid eyes on Buckley that we would be bringing him home with us. He was the perfect puppy - well behaved, gentle natured, affectionate and strikingly handsome. It took me only 6 months before I was bringing home one of my own - Cooper.

Cooper decided from day one that he was going to be my dog. He played with his brother and sister until he was totally worn out and then would curl up in my lap and stare at me until he fell asleep. In a matter of weeks we had built up an incredible bond and he was my constant shadow.

We began obedience training at 6 months of age. I had enjoyed obedience training with Jemma and was really excited about doing it with Cooper as he showed so much potential and had great eye contact. I also wanted to get a few months of obedience training in before he started his agility career. I had never trained a dog using the clicker before but thanks to ADAA I had learned a bit about it and had seen how quickly Buckley had picked up the idea. I spent a lot of time with WAAG’s Chief Instructor, Tracey, learning about shaping behaviors and operant conditioning and couldn’t wait to start testing it out on Cooper.

A short time after commencing training with Cooper he was completing all of the obedience exercises to a very high standard and healing beautifully but something was troubling me. He was starting to favor one side and had developed a slight limp. We made an appointment with the vet to get it checked out and they gave us some anti-inflammatory tablets and said it may go away by itself. We kept an eye on him and were told to report back in a week or so if it didn’t get any better. A week later we were back at the vets requesting x-rays. The limp hadn’t worsened but the tablets hadn’t made any difference and he was due to start agility training soon. I asked the vet if she thought it could be HD and she informed me that I would be very unlucky if it was but it was a possibility. I went away a little reassured that it was only a sprain and the x-ray would show nothing but bruising. Unfortunately I was wrong.

I remember it so clearly. I walked back into the vets excited about picking up Coop and I said to the vet “You’ve got good news for me haven’t you?” I didn’t need an answer; as soon as I saw the look on her face I knew something was wrong. “It couldn’t be worse,” she said. She held up Coopers x-ray results beside the x-ray of a cat that had been hit by a car and broken its hip and guess who had the better hip………….yep, the cat!

I had a million questions for the vet but I couldn’t ask them for fear that I was going to burst into tears. He was only 8 months old. I asked the vet to bring Cooper in to the room so that I could be left by myself for a second to catch my breath and compose myself but it made no difference. As soon as I saw him bounding up to me and so excited to see me the tears came rolling down.

The vet continued to explain how Coopers “elbows” also appeared to have loose joints (also known as sub-luxating joints) and if they were to operate on his hip they would do the elbow as well and when he recovered they would operate on the other “elbow”. Could it get any worse!

I was given four options.

1. Do nothing – The cheapest option. The dog may live the rest of it’s life and never get any worse or it may be running around the back yard one day and turn too sharply and brake its hip (and then require a hip replacement). This was not a risk I was prepared to take.

2. A Femoral Head Excision – This involves the removal of the femoral head (the ball of the hip). The recovery period is about 6 months of intense physio but the dog will have a new lease on life afterwards. Is best performed on young dogs and was the recommended option.

3. A Triple Pelvic Osteotamy – The pelvis gets cut in three places and is twisted to fit into the hip??

4. Hip Replacement – This involves removal of the hip altogether and a replacement hip is inserted. Have they managed to get this right in humans yet?

I went straight home and jumped on my computer and by the end of the day was an expert on hip operations. I had spoken to the hip specialist who had been liaising with my vet and the decision was made to operate ASAP. Marty arrived home from work to find me in tears as I sat on the back patio hugging my dogs. I could only imagine what Cooper was going to go through over the coming months.

Marty immediately started to build a timber crate on wheels that was to become Coopers home for the next few months. We decided on the Femoral Head Excision so Cooper was to be crated and only taken out on lead to go to the toilet and to have physio. He quickly learned to love the crate. I think it had something to do with the fact that every time he was bought out of it he had to endure the physio and cold ice on the hip to reduce the swelling. Luckily when they operated on his hip they checked out his elbow joints and they were fine so there was no need to operate there. He was just a gangly puppy with some growing to do. He toe touched out of the vet surgery after the operation which was fantastic to see and in the following months the vets were really impressed with his recovery. They put a lot of it down to the physio we were doing with him including between 40-60 hip rotations three times a day and 2x half hour walks per day along with swimming and stretching. Mind you Marty had to lie on top of him and shove treats down his mouth while I did the physio and the walks were slower than snail pace initially. Luckily I was working from home at the time and Marty and I were able to take it in turns.

The vet had told us that at about 3 months into the recovery period we would see quite an improvement in Coopers mental attitude and he would be almost puppy-like again. This was not the case and we were starting to get very anxious about it so we took him straight back to the vets for x-rays. Sure enough, the bone had grown spurs and every time he walked the spurs were digging into his muscle that was trying to rebuild. He was straight back in for another operation the next day to remove the spurs and we were back to square one. Confined to the crate once again and back to the physio and snail paced walks!! At this stage we were told that there was no guarantee that the spurs would not grow back so we were concerned that Cooper was going to spend the rest of his life going in and out of surgery. When was this going to end! We had already retired him from agility (before he even started) and decided he would do CD obedience but not CDX or UD due to the jumping involved. But we were just as determined as he was to get him back on his feet and running around with his brother and sister again so we persisted with his physio and worked even harder than before. We continued to visit the vets over the following months for regular check ups and in next to no time he was out of the crate and able to be left unsupervised outside with Jemma and Buckley (and if you have ever seen how rough our dogs play you would realise that that in itself is a huge deal).

I still take Cooper down to the vets on a regular basis to have him weighed as I am conscious of keeping his weight down so that there is no excess strain on his hips. I also take him to say g’day to the girls in the clinic as he absolutely loves to visit them and it’s one of the very few times he verbally expresses his excitement (OK, so he barks on the agility course too!)

Earlier this year while visiting the vet I received some news that once again brought a tear to my eyes. I had made the decision earlier that I wouldn’t do agility with Cooper as I thought the repetitive jumping would be harmful to his hip but this was not the case. The vet was encouraging me to start agility with Cooper stating that the exercises would help strengthen the muscles around his hip. Due to the type of operation he had there can be no bone to bone rubbing to cause arthritis in that hip and he has the same chance of injuring the muscle supporting his hip as Jemma does. As long as he's warmed up and I keep an eye on him the next day for any signs of stiffness then he should be out there having fun too! This was the best news I had received in a very long time so why did I have that hint of doubt? I was in two minds about whether or not it was the right thing to do and was questioning myself all of the time, for example, what if he falls off the dog walk? I sought advise from a couple of other vets who also suggested I give it a go and see what happens so we entered WAAGs March beginners class.

Cooper started having the time of his life! Finally he got to run around the agility course like his brother and sister AND was getting yummy treats for it AND was getting to play with his toys AND as if that wasn’t enough he also got to spend more time alongside me, which he thinks is the greatest reward of all. He knocked quite a few bars in his initial training but we think that was more a combination of him watching me instead of the jumps and his lack of jumping style. I have done a lot of work with him in an attempt to build the muscles back up around his hip. Since the Susan Garrett seminar we have been walking him both directions through ladders, using the “back” command on the flat, the stairs and around corners and have learnt to turn on the forehand. Although three separate vets have given him the OK to do agility, I still stress about making sure I do everything I possibly can to prevent him injuring the muscle that's holding his hip in place.

I took Cooper back to the vet this month to give him a thorough check up and he has a very good build up of muscle in his hip now. It will never be as strong as the other hip as the removal of the ball joint has caused the right leg to be shorter and given him a permanent limp (albeit slight it does become more noticeable with a lot of back end work).

It's now been 14 months since Coopers last hip operation, which brings me back to the PADS competition. This was Coopers very first competition and although we earned a qualification in Starters agility we have achieved so much more than that. And in reply to my initial concerns about him falling off the dog walk – he would get straight back on and try again just like any other agility dog!

Cooper (right) with Buckley and Jemma

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