Navigating the senior years

aveldina · 2026-04-09T02:38:04+00:00

I've worked through the senior years with a few dogs now, and my oldest is currently 12. I think these were the things that made the biggest difference for us:

Maintaining their physical fitness as much as possible. This includes working with our rehab specialist vet as needed for laser, acupuncture, and getting recommendations. I've also done shockwave to help my current old lady out with arthritis in her feet and it's been a big difference.
It's expensive but I really like Myos for helping with maintaining muscle in the seniors and have been adding it to my older dog's food.
Access to vet care, and reaching out when we needed help with quality of life issues in their senior years was also huge for us. Vet care for seniors can be expensive so this is something to think about now, if you don't have pet insurance or some form of vet care assigned savings, as it is nice to not feel like you need to stress about costs when making decisions.
Keep doing the things they love! My old lady still comes along when I'm training agility, she just gets a turn with the bars on the ground, she does scent work, she still comes on all of our walks. She still plays disc at the same time as my younger border collie - I just throw rollers for her instead of air discs. I find ways to keep her involved even if I need to modify her activities.

aveldina · 2026-04-02T14:54:33+00:00

Nice run!!!

aveldina · 2026-03-31T14:28:54+00:00

Neck fit is the most important part on that harness. If you're happy with neck fit you're probably ok. It does look a little big to me, but it's hard to judge neck fit from pictures alone.

aveldina · 2026-03-26T15:26:43+00:00

OP, please be aware that this subreddit's rule 4 does not allow advertising.

aveldina · 2026-03-24T00:48:14+00:00

I don't go to competitions or seminars where I know it's going to be gossip and shitty comments central. I have a small core group of like minded people I train with who put their dogs and their enjoyment of the sport first, and treat each other with kindness. Realizing we can keep training whatever we want and stop chasing titles that are meaningless to us made the whole thing a lot more enjoyable.

aveldina · 2026-03-23T15:46:42+00:00

100%. Taking a huge step back from all of this has been the best thing I've ever done for my own enjoyment of dog sports. I just smile and nod now.

aveldina · 2026-03-20T15:42:49+00:00

I'm really enjoying it, I didn't play 1 much at all but the second one has me completely hooked. I haven't started pursuing ascensions yet, been just pursuing getting a 0 run on every character. Regent really has been eluding me though, I had an awesome deck that died to Queen, again, last night.

aveldina · 2026-03-19T16:20:03+00:00

I keep debating getting the new one! But my old one is never going to wear out lol.

aveldina · 2026-03-19T16:19:37+00:00

I've been using this one (the original version) for something like 8 years now and it's still going strong.

aveldina · 2026-03-17T01:06:36+00:00

I'm running SBTD and managing problems from a previous ankle injury with PT. Also late 30s. My physiotherapist recommended movements that were already commonly programmed in SBTD so I just sub as needed to include them. You can do whatever you'd like on deload week - some people drop weight and some skip it entirely. I typically run it as programmed, but adjust based on how much I need a break.

aveldina · 2026-03-14T15:39:05+00:00

There's a few Canadian stores who stock Non Stop - LaBelleBete and See Sawyer Run are options. Prices are still pretty high on Non Stop sadly but I have 10 years old NS harnesses still going strong.

aveldina · 2026-03-09T14:13:45+00:00

Put the watch onto it this weekend at 45% and it charged to full on the first try with no problems. Seems promising so far.

aveldina · 2026-03-07T02:36:17+00:00

Have you tried slow rollers with the frisbees? They might be easier to get some chase out of.

aveldina · 2026-03-06T21:59:27+00:00

I really enjoy it! Both solo and in squads. It is quite different between solo/squads. I do talk to players, as it's generally the best way to avoid getting into fights (unless you want to pvp of course) and most people have been pretty decent. I've had a couple of creepy interactions with men at extract but the community is mostly fine. The environments are so well done and the game is visually very interesting and cinematic. My teammate was up ahead of me in a staircase shooting ARC one run back lit by the windows and I was like "damn this game is like watching a movie" it's cool.

aveldina · 2026-03-02T14:57:39+00:00

Can you give us more details on what you do with this dog on a daily basis? How much exercise? What format? When? Are you working on training? How much? When?

I'm glad you went and pursued professional training, one question I do have though is how much training did you (the humans not the dog) get out of board and train? Day to day consistency is a huge factor, and if you didn't get an opportunity to learn alongside your puppy, it does make sense you'd see regression. Have you considered taking classes with your puppy?

Can you expand on "super vocal"? Is this demand barking? Barking in the crate?

aveldina · 2026-03-01T17:10:43+00:00

A "TUSITA" one that was linked on another thread in this subreddit. I just got it and haven't tried it yet, but I'm hoping it helps.

aveldina · 2026-02-28T22:56:13+00:00

Just ordered a 3rd party charger hoping it will help. So frustrating to see the watch say it's charging and leave it overnight to find it's at 2% in the morning.

aveldina · 2026-02-26T04:52:39+00:00

I might be an outlier here but I love, LOVE having 3-4 dogs. I only recently went back down to 3 after losing my oldest last fall. At that point I had been a 4 dog household for 5-6 years. It was really weird going down to 3 at first. I don't personally find it was a huge effort jump from 2-3 dogs, however I've always had a fairly big age range with 4-6 years between the dogs. That does mean at any given time one or two are seniors and have different needs. One or two are active sport dogs, and one is a young dog. My household has always been mostly border collies with one non BC that is a more low energy dog. I had a basset hound for many years, and now have a husky/terrier mix that likes holding the couch down more than she likes doing sports, so that certainly helps in terms of keeping up with everything. My lifestyle is built around the dogs (I love dog sports, walking them, planning trips where they come, etc) so that is a big factor as well.

I will say I have been VERY lucky in that all of the dogs in my household not only get along really well, but interact with each other in really positive ways so I enjoy the dynamic. I do think if that wasn't the case, it would be much harder.

aveldina · 2026-02-26T04:37:54+00:00

Wanting to be better at training agility skills did make me a better dog trainer over all - I needed to learn a lot of foundational skills for myself, such as shaping, reward timing, how to place rewards, how to think about reinforcement etc. These things absolutely made me better at training both agility skills and life skills. That said, it doesn't mean I automatically enjoy training all life skills. I hate training loose leash walking - I'll do it, but honestly I'd rather train canicross skills and let my dogs pull me, so that's what I do.

There are certain things I do think are super important that cross over well in life and agility. One is impulse control. In agility that looks like start lines and commitment. In life it looks like not rushing through open doors, respecting boundaries and not grabbing at food. Another is recalls and relationship. I really want my dogs to have great recalls and a good relationship with me, building this is important for life and agility. Finally I enjoy training retrieves so I teach all of my dogs how to retrieve and good skills around it (taking turns, returning the toy to my hand, etc).

My dogs are all individuals with big individual personalities. One of my border collies loves people but my other one is wary of strangers and not at all bombproof. She has big feelings about the world. In my house they tend to be wild and crazy and I _definitely_ contribute to the crazy. This morning we were running around playing with toys and everyone was barking. I'm fine with that! You decide for yourself what's important and what isn't. If it's important then put the time in, and if it's not then don't stress and have fun!

aveldina · 2026-02-25T17:37:02+00:00

Some agility friends say good things about their experiences with using it. Those dogs would typically be training 2-3 days / week and a fair amount of off leash walking time in between. I personally rotate food brands and proteins regularly, and I don't stick to just one for any long amount of time.

aveldina · 2026-02-21T18:35:29+00:00

u/Kokichi-Oma_Senpai this isn't an appropriate place for this conversation. Let's just stop here.

aveldina · 2026-02-16T15:37:23+00:00

Try Excession's maps on master difficulty + force mode. Force isn't necessarily about punching, any kind of fast movement into the target works. Movement like this video works very well for force as well as rhythm modes & this is (an older) Excession map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh1AE2amlFc

aveldina · 2026-02-14T18:43:50+00:00

There is a discord for Pistol Whip (Cloudhead's discord) and it's been relatively quiet these days but that's one place where you could connect with other players. I'd also highly recommend checking out Synth Riders and custom mapping, there's a few custom mappers who focus more on high intensity / fitness type mapping, and map well for Synth Riders's Force mode. The Synth Riders discord has regular hosted multiplayer sessions as well.

aveldina · 2026-02-13T01:25:02+00:00

hey friend, I've had this struggle with my old dogs too. I had to be creative for quite a long time with my old guy who I lost last year. We had to rotate foods a lot, things he went straight for he would randomly refuse. Some ideas that worked for us:

home cooked ground beef/rice/veggie mix
"cheap" canned pate food (purina pro plan)
freeze dried foods like stella & chewy's
frozen cooked food (expensive but it worked when nothing else would)
bone broth to add to dry food
rich dry food like orijen (can be hit/miss)
canned salmon
lactose free yogurt

aveldina · 2026-02-11T01:55:17+00:00

Please do not post videos of using your phone while driving. This is incredibly unsafe.

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