Chiropractor

When I started doing collar grabs with Chimera for the weave poles, he initially responded well by increasing his drive forward. However after a short while I saw his intensity decrease, and then he started subtly shying away from it. On Tuesday of last week, he opened his mouth and put his teeth on my wrist when I reached for his collar. I didn't know whether this was because I had accidentally pulled on his fur, or he was getting intimidated by the handling, or he had some physical ailment. I stopped doing the collar grabs and scheduled an appointment with a chiropractor for this morning.

The doctor was gentle and calm with him, and Chimera handled it really well. He mostly hung out on my lap during the adjustment and was relaxed. There were just a couple of moments when he lip licked or turned his head away as stress signals. I was pleasantly surprised by how well he handled this new, strange situation. All the handling work I've been doing is paying off!

The doctor said that he did have a disc out of alignment. He also said that I could retry the collar grabs after a couple of days and see whether the adjustment fixed the problem. However I think that I'll just avoid them completely. We've been making very good progress with the weaves, and everything else, without it.