I did retire my acd this past April. She had TPLO 2 yrs ago and her other leg was showing some wear. After a couple months in retirement she became very snarky with the other dogs in the house. We spoke to our vets including the holistic vet and they all agreed she needs her job back. We ran her 2 months ago (part time) and she was so happy. You could see it on her face. One week later she had her second TPLO. We knew the knee was going to blow out if it wasn’t already. By blowing out the knee we could do surgery. My acd will be back on the lanes in a few months and at the age of 9 yrs she will be quite content.

Sometimes the dogs will tell you if they want to retire and some times they will tell you you screwed up and want to keep playing. Foster no longer has a knee to blow out which is why she will get to play again.

You really have to know the dog and their attitude, love of the sport, etc… when you make a decision like retirement. At times, it is better to retire them but sometimes it is not the right call. We have done both and the decision always sucks.

At first you might say that it’d be easier to call it quits on a sport career, given that death is more serious than retirement. But for that same reason, I think some might keep a dog in the sport longer than is optimal.

I think most people make the decision based upon personal gratification. I.e. if the dog still gratifies our existence more than we are pained by their suffering, we’re likely to keep the dog around. We do this with ourselves and our family members, it’s not just dogs.

But when the feelings of mercy and guilt and pity overwhelm the joy we get from having our loved animals still alive, we make the hard choice.

To quit the sport is to admit and reinforce the dog’s age and thus the proximity of death is just that much closer. It’s also more difficult for the animal’s age and slight deterioration to outweigh the joy we get from them competing and the joy they get from it too. The joy doesn’t fade quickly, nor does the deterioration happen all at once.

A big event, like an injury or a near-miss, is usually required to push us to make that hard choice. We never notice how softly we age or gain weight or lose weight when we look in the mirror each day and the change is small. It’s only when someone else who hasn’t seen us in a while mentions something that we get jolted into noticing.

Perhaps it’d be wise to mark a day on your calendar and on that day take photos and videos of your dog in action. The next year, on that day, do the same and compare.

You just might avoid the big injury or the close call.

Paige is 10 and in otherwise in good health. We still exerciser her and she loves playing ball. She pops and cracks a little sometime and we give her a Glucosamine, Chondroitin, and MSM pill daily. Every now and then, we can tell that she’s in pain and we give her a dose of Metacam, but she has more good days than bad. Her eye is almost back to normal and no surgery was required. As far as we can tell, she’s enjoying her retirement.

Sadie, my very first (and best) Flyball dog ran in her last
tournament last weekend at the Championship. She has
been such a great dog for many years, incredibly fun to
run because she is so passionate about running.

Unfortunately, she has Progressive Retinal Atrophy,
which is a genetic disease that prevents her Retinas
from growing new cells. As her old cells die, she’ll go
blind. She probably has a month or two of limited sight.

It was incredibly heartbreaking to run her for the last
time. She was great, even 80% blind, she found her
way to the box and back. The only problem was that if
she bobbled, she could not find the ball.

I’m just glad that she’s otherwise healthy and happy,
and her contribution to our Flyball club is not even close
to done.

My other dog is 9, has had a TPLO on one knee and lives her life in a gonzo fashion. Her turn is just okay, she had a box slam style until we retrained shortly into her career. She’s got over 50K in points. Sadly does more damage to herself in everyday life, at least the flyball course is rather safe for her to run on. I like to say she has no sense of self-preservation. We struggle between her being healthy & injuring herself, and that makes putting her on a lineup an iffy thing. She could be fine or she could be out from yet another different injury. I suspect she will retire before the 11 yr old, which is sad because she LOVES flyball so much.

For me it’s sad because it’s the passing of an era and a reminder that their time with me is short. They’ve had pretty long careers, and I am proud of them. So I have been trying to take each tournament one by one, and enjoy what might be their last races. In some ways I wish I did have a clear sign like you had with Paige.

We just had to retire our Lab Rowdy – who in his prime ran 4.2. He ran up until this last spring, when I noticed he was not running the same, and he just seemed “off.” One weekend at home, he would barely walk around – and this is a dog that was ALWAYS running full bore. So off to the vet, and it was determined he was in kidney failure – something common in Labs. We changed his diet, and meds helped him. He could probably still run part time, but, I don’t want to put any undo stress on him. So now he stays home with the sitters…Justin misses running him, but, at least we know he will be with us longer.