Winter Training at Home - Phase 1!

I think I mentioned putting mats down in the basement for training, didn't I? Well, if not -- I decided to mat my basement!

The worst part about not teaching agility this winter is that I have also lost the ability to work my dogs each week at the dog center. :o( We also tend to get ice each winter that limits our ability to play outdoors (and I do mean just simply play, not even agility related!), so I figured it would be nice to have a safe area indoors to blow off some steam.

Well, the first shipment of mats arrived yesterday from www.rubberflooringinc.com! They are much lighter than I expected and I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was very happy with them when I put them down. I'm kind of a moron when it comes to puzzles (sigh) and I did have some "issues" with figuring out the pattern at first, but once I got it worked out it went down very quickly. I never did figure out how to line one edge with the matching blue straight edge, though, so there is a line of red on one side. :o)

I am completely inept at math skills AND I ordered before I actually bothered to measure my basement. I am brainy, indeed. So.... This is the result. I actually still have over half the room to go -- And the framing still needs to get knocked out, obviously, but I wanted to lay down what I had to get an idea of if I really liked it or not before I ordered the rest. This is turning out to be a far more expensive endeavor than I originally anticipated. It turns out that the "expensive" rolled matting would have been quite a bit cheaper. Oh well, I must admit I think this stuff looks very nice. It's also almost a full inch thick, which will be far more kind on the dogs' joints than the standard 1/2" rolled mats.

The first batch of mats covers an area measuring 18' x 10'. I couldn't NOT play on the mats right away, so I brought one jump out to play with last night. It was a tight fit, even for wrap work, but we made it work.

Secret was not amused in the least when I simply asked her to go over the jump when all of the dogs were down there playing. I put the boys upstairs and grabbed a toy (her new Holee Roller with my old polo wraps braided through it for a handle!) and then it was much more fun for her! We made good use of a small space and it was a great way to break in our new training area.

I think it will also be an awesome area to work on trick training this winter. That's something we definitely need to get back into now that the cold weather has hit.

Speaking of weather, things are looking crummy for our play date on Saturday. :o( We are forecast to get 8" of snow between Friday night and Saturday (it's also snowing pretty good as I write this!). If the snow ends Saturday morning we are good to go, but if it drags out and the plows fall behind, there is no way we can make the 2 1/2 hour trek. Boo. Let's hope for a fast moving storm.

We still love our booties! Secret wore them for frisbee last night and on our walk today. They rock.