CH Laci's Deck the Hall MW RA MX AXJ CGC VC
DOB 12.17.1997
Decker - my first heart dog. I love this dog more than life and now at 11 years of age he is still a darling want-to-do-it-all dog. I had purchased a wire from a kennel on the East Coast to become another adjunct to our pedigree variety. She was a cute bitch, supposed to be a show dog but her coat was extremely soft and she didn't particularly CARE for the show ring. However, she did have good structure so I bred her to a smooth to tighten up her coat and hopefully improve upon her front. The breeder I went to for this had lines that were known for producing great fronts.
The resulting puppy that I kept had a great harsh coat, especially for a black and tan, and a HUGE heart for wanting to please. Although he finished his championship he did not have the conformation *type* I desired (although his head is just gorgeous) so instead I chose to neuter him and start training in agility. WOW! Decker loved it and even though his body is truly not built for it (his chest is very, very deep and that does make him similar to being top heavy - he is front heavy - and it took him a lot of effort to get that chest over 8 inch jumps) he earned high titles in agility! He truly started us in the love for agility. He never had a day when he didn't want to do agility.
Unfortunately, at 5 years of age he had his first experience with back issues. I woke up on a Friday morning with him beside me in bed not being able to accurately move his rear legs. Within a few hours he was totally paralyzed in the back end. After a weekend from you-know-where, he started his real treatment (he was on maintenance treatment over the weekend) for IVDD. He did recover from this incident with the initial treatment of steroid blasting, then steroid maintenance and crate rest. After one week he had bladder control back, then bowel control. After 2 weeks he could maintain a stand if stood up but he couldn't walk. We then scheduled our first acupuncture treatment - he walked out of the Dr's office. Although he does walk *different*, he was back to being our Decker.
Slightly over one year later he had another incident. Steroids and acupuncture brought him back again - this time we didn't even wait for him to go fully down but started as soon as he showed signs of losing control. Decker is now 11 years old and doing great. He can do stairs although we keep it to a minimum number of times during the day and he rules the roost here. Last year he started in Rally and he now has his Rally Advanced title and will be starting in competition in Excellent soon.
