to the untrained eye, she looks perfectly fine...she's playing, eating, drinking, her eyes are clear, she looks just fine. But to me...she's off a bit.
Started with last weekend at flyball...she ran horribly. Her times were off from what they normally are...about a 1/2 second slower from the beginning of the tournament...so I pulled her and put Score in her place. She was running slower, but also...she had one incident where she ran off and appeared confused about where she was...ran into the other lane and turned and looked at me like "what?!?!?"
Then a couple times when I went to grab for her...she ducked/shied away...like "OMG!!! Why are you grabbing for me!!!AAAHHHH!" Not typical for her...very Ripley, but not her. She'll often avoid me grabbing for her, but it's so she can dash off to steal food from someone's treat bucket on the lanes...and it's not a fearful type of move. Last weekend at least 2-3 times it was a fearful move...
Yesterday, we were playing in the yard...and she stopped. Just stopped chasing Score after about 20-30 minutes of running and chasing and humping. Again, nothing horrible...just odd for her. She's usually the energizer bunny. She's relaxing more, and not bugging the other dogs as much (still bugging them, just not as crazily...)
She's 6 1/2 years old, so it could be old age catching up to her, as someone suggested...but it seems odd to me that she'd change so abruptly. (the last tournament was earlier in March...and her times were normal for her).
Someone else suggested thyroid issues...which seem to make sense, since Rip had the same sort of fear issues when his thyroid goes out of whack.
Another thought is that she's just not feeling well...Oreo (foster pit thing) has some sort of creeping crud...(she's due for a vet visit, as her stuff is getting worse)...Oreo's got runny, goopy eyes. Her crud has been around for a week or so (it looked like it got better...now it's worse)...and on Monday, she actually startled twice when I went to attach her leash...(this dog does NOT startle). Maybe she's not seeing well out of the goopy eyes. Inara had some runny/red eyes earlier in the week (before the tournament)...but again, it wasn't bad last weekend...and hasn't been noticable since.
Also...our last Fidos dog (Dexter) that just left last week, tested positive for Giardia...so maybe she's got a touch of that...even though I'm not seeing diarrhea...
So many little things...nothing majorly wrong...if she's still right this weekend, I'm taking her to the vet...
"I don't have any idea if my dogs respect me or not, but they're greedy and I have their stuff." -- Patty Ruzzo
"Dogs don't want to control people. They want to control their own lives." --John Bradshaw