Freya’s thyroid panel results came back today, and everything looks normal. Not low-normal, normal. It looks better than the last one we did not quite two years ago. We also did a regular blood chemistry panel, and everything looks fine there, too.
On the one hand, it’s good to know that everything looks fine with her health right now. She’ll be seven years old in November, so she’s well into Rottweiler middle age. On the other, since I’m her primary trainer and handler, her recent training issues then point straight back at me and my less-than-stellar dog training abilities. Ouch.
Although yesterday’s exercise in gratitudinaety definitely put me in a better place, I’m still not sure where I want to go with my training and trialing plans for Freya. Remember that the big question that remains:
How can I help this dog to live with more joy and be more connected to me?
If Freya is not finding any joy in training and competing in rally obedience with me, does that mean I need to find a way to make it fun for her again, or let her retire and just be a plain old dog? I’ve retired dogs before, but it’s always been for health reasons, not because they just didn’t want to play the game or do the job any more, so I’m not quite sure how to handle this yet.
I so wish she could talk.
Whatever I decide, I am still grateful for this sweet girl who is sleeping upside down on the loveseat right this minute, just like yesterday’s photo.
(NaBloPoMo | July ’10: 14 of 31)