Ally (a.k.a. Lickity Split's Grand Finale, Ally-Bean) was born on January 4, 2002, in Parker, Colorado. She came to me from Darlene McInnes of Lickity Split Jack Russells.

Ally was my first Jack Russell Terrier. I got her because I was looking for a second agility dog and a friend suggested I research JRTs. Darlene was planning to keep Ally for breeding until she found out that Ally was deaf in one ear. That was a lucky day for me because she got to come live with me!

Because Ally was my first JRT, we had some ups and downs training and competing because I was still a novice! I was smart enough to train her to perform a 2O-2O on her dog walk and A-frame, though, and she had beautiful contacts! She was a blast to run and very similar to her brother, Petey, toned down just a bit.

Ally started having seizures almost one month to the day after her rabies booster, when she was 22 months old. I tried everything to help with her seizures including medication (KBr, Phenobarbital), gold bead implants (a permanent form of acupressure), homeopathy, raw diet, herbs, anything anyone suggested that I though might help. Unfortunately, nothing did and by the time she was three, she was no longer the dog I used to know. The medications and the seizures were very hard on her and she continued to have cluster seizures regardless of being medicated. So, just after her third birthday, I made the horrible, gut-wrenching decision to put her to sleep.

Although it was heart breaking to lose her, Ally and her illness taught me a lot of valuable lessons about feeding an appropriate, prey-model raw diet as well as the dangers of vaccines.

Title Reference

• AX - AKC Agility Excellent
• AXJ - AKC Agility Excellent Jumpers