posted by Doranna
Of all my dogs, Belle is the quiet one. Even of my currently competing performance dogs, Belle is the quiet one. While Connery Beagle busily bays at strategic points along our agility courses--everyone knows when the Beagle is running!--Belle runs quietly, often getting the job done before anyone quite notices we've even been at the start line. Connery runs in the middle of the class at the 16" height...short-legged Belle runs at eight and four inches, and is often the first dog on the line for the entire day. Everyone else is still setting up, still settling in...not paying much attention. And off she goes, sticking the course and bringing it in at fifteen to twenty seconds under time, along with the blue ribbons and "high score in class" ribbons (fastest dog of any jump height in her class) to prove it.

When she runs, I rarely raise my voice loud enough for anyone outside the course to hear. There are no gasping call-offs, no last-minute saves, no dramatic windmilling gestures on the course. She's smooth and accurate, and her tail often wags madly in the very fashion that earned her the nickname "Propeller Butt." As long as I do my job as a handler, she does her job as an athlete; she's a reliable Double Q dog.

But she's not flashy. She's not loud. And there are a lot of people who don't even realize I run two dogs and that, in fact, the eager, clowning Beagle is not my "star."

Belle is.

What makes this all the more remarkable is that Belle, a Cardigan Welsh Corgi, has spinal disk disease. It's not from the agility--it's because she's a dwarf breed, and the dwarf dogs--all of them--are prone to this calcification of the spinal disks. Some get it, some don't. (And although I'd done my best homework when I first got into the breed, there was at that point a certain amount of denial in the breed fancy, and the potential for this disease was obscured.) Belle first went down when she was just shy of six years old, as she was maturing from a young agility whiz into a seasoned competitor. She was shy only a leg each on two of her final Excellent-level titles, after having gone straight through the AKC title path with all qualifying and placing runs and done nearly the same with NADAC.

In fact, the agility not only wasn't a contributing factor, but it has probably saved her life--because when you've got a dog in regular training, you know instantly when something's not quite right. If she'd been properly diagnosed the first day I took her to the vet (a substitute for our regular), she wouldn't have experienced partial paralysis...but she wasn't, and she did, and the next day my regular vet quickly pinned down the real problem and sent us off on an adventure of strict crate rest and slow, slow rehab, with absolutely no expectations. That she might return to competition was theoretically possible--even desirable, as it would keep her strong and protect her--but he'd never had a dog come back to 100% from such a deficit.

So I added support supplements, and I found a massage therapist, and I cried a lot. Not just for me...for Belle, who so loved to run agility that she, too, sobbed in her crate when there was training activity on the property. And slowly...very slowly...Belle came back to soundness, and six months later, as Connery debuted in his first trial ever, she returned to competition and finished her AKC Excellent Jumpers title with a High Score in Class.

Not that it was all easy from there--I had a steep learning curve on the support she needs to avoid muscle cramps and minor flares, and it was a full two years before she was running a regular trial schedule alongside Connery. At last winter's season of trialing, she was finally running two days of two courses each, which gave her the opportunity to gather Double Qs for her PAX title (the highest title she can earn, an accumulation of Double Qs at the highest level of competition)--and in that season, she racked up half of the twenty Double Qs needed.

This fall, we had hoped to approach finishing that title; by the end of the winter trial season, finish it. Because...Belle's not flashy, but Belle performs.

However, every trial I went to, I told myself I was lucky to have her there. I told myself this could be the last one. I prepared myself. And now, indeed, here we are again. Belle is three years older than she was, a middle-aged dog, and we've already used one miracle. She's also more excited by agility than ever; this past week, as I've practiced with Connery, she sits in the crate and wails with grief. She wants.

And I want, too.

Bellejumpgleesm So here's to Belle, and everything she's given me, and all the glee and little blue dog giggles she's put into our time together so far. We may not get a second miracle, but if anyone deserves one, it's my little blue Belle.

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