So I thought I’d pop in with an update. Lily is now accepting training without the clicker again, which is good. I emailed the teacher for the class last night and told her what happened, and we agreed that at class tonight we would not use the clicker too much, just “yes!” and treats.
The other big news is that I may have figured out more to why she got so scared. See, Lily has what we suspect to be a mild luxuating patella in her left back leg. Her only symptom was limping a little sometimes during walks, and the vet wasn’t even able to detect a grade I, but that’s what the vet suspected it was. On Saturday, her limp got quite a bit worse, mostly at the beginning of walks, which I thought was just because she hadn’t been walked as much lately due to the rain. And then last night, when I was grooming that same leg, she suddenly growled and snapped, not as if she was actually trying to bite but as a warning, out of pain. Several minutes later she was next to me and begging for a belly rub, so it didn’t seem like she was seriously scared or hurt.
Then, all of the sudden, something clicked in my brain. The clicker incident was Friday night. She started limping more Saturday. And now, this grooming incident..something is going on with that leg! I guess those could have been three unrelated events, but that seems highly unlikely. I’ll try to make a vet appointment for Lily later this week, though I’m not sure when we’ll have time to take her. I just hope it isn’t anything more serious than the luxuating patella. I was a bit concerned about hip dysplasia, even though that is much more common in larger breeds. Any thoughts on this?
