Maggie was always going to be a very special dog, this was clear to me from the time she picked me to be her pal when she was just 5 weeks old. She has a great spirit, and has always shown enormous enthusiasm for all of our adventures, so much so that there are few activities that we don't do together. She has a competitive nature - she has never let me beat her mountain biking or running - and she became an extremely good agility dog at a very early age. We won the Top Dog trophy together at the New Zealand Agility Championships in 1999, in just her 5th agility show.
It is hard to describe just how important the little tart is to me, but when I moved from New Zealand to the US I was not going to leave her behind, so she came to live with me in Tahoe. We've had enormous fun here together, hiking, mountain biking, snow shoeing, cross country skiing and competing in agility - all activities which Maggie threw herself into with her usual vigor and enthusiasm. We've made great friends in agility in the US, and she added to her NZ trophy by being part of the winning Pre-Elite team at the NADAC Championships in 2002.
So it was an awful shock to get the call telling me she'd been hit by a car - and worse to see my vibrant, energetic little dog unable to move. As delighted I was to have her alive, the initial prognosis of limited physical movement and uncertain recovery was disheartening given her love of active pastimes. She is a battler though!
She responded very well to the medical treatment she received – thanks SCAF! - and has progressed tremendously in her rehabilitation this summer. We now hope that she may make a return to agility in a couple of months time, a miraculous recovery coming just 5 months after her paralysis. It has been a strange summer without my little black accomplice at my side in our usual pastimes, I'm hugely pleased to have her recovering enough now to join me again - a little wobblier but with her typical verve. It's true that I really didn't realize how much she meant to me until I nearly lost her.
Sincere thanks from Maggie and I to everyone at SCAF and your contributors, you do make a difference!
Andy McIsaac