Remedial Tire Training

After having several run-outs at the tire at our trial this weekend, it became glaringly obvious that Secret would benefit from a little "Tire 101" work.

And no, that photo is not current. It's dark and snowy outside, which doesn't make for good picture-taking --- but what is a blog post without pictures? So you get one from September.

Being that it IS all snowy and blah outside, we can't really do much agility training at the moment. But we CAN pry the tire frame out of the snow and bring the wee tire (vs. the super stretched out 24" tire) out for a bit of fun in the snow.

I'm almost positive that the issue Secret has with the tire involves her brushing against it when she jumps. Be it top, side, what have you, she's just sensitive about that. What could be better than working through that issue than jumping through an 18" tire?

Sends and going with her were fine, but Secret showed a definite weakness on her recall, going around the tire on three separate occasions. She wasn't acting like she had any ISSUES with the tire, just that she didn't see any reason for going through it if she didn't have to.

Weather permitting (tomorrow is supposed to rain, followed by snow this weekend, so we may end up with just a whole lot of ICE), we'll keep touching on this in the weeks to come. I expect to have to fill the teeter bank now and then -- coming back to the tire was something I didn't anticipate. But oh well, we'll take it in stride!

This morning I had a brain fart and left the gate open to the big yard when I left for work. It was probably subconscious due to me wearing heeled boots and not wanting to fall on my butt on the slope of ice by the gate... It wasn't until I was on the drive home and wondering how I was going to open the gate in my boots that it occurred to me that I had never SHUT the gate this morning.

Oh my.

I've never left the gate open. Frankly, Secret is destructive enough in the small potty area; I'd be scared to give her full run of the yard every day. I can just count the craters she would dig and see all of the mud she would track into the house... So of course all of these visions were going through my head as I pulled into the garage. What damage would I find?

There was none. Good dogs! But I still don't think we'll make this a habit...

Today I made a hotel reservation in Cannon Falls for our USDAA trial next month. I've decided to do both days and ultimately driving two hours back and forth each day is a little much. I've done 90 minutes to Zumbro Falls, but those trials are small and don't start until 9 a.m. each day. I think this will work out much better, although we are going to be stuck sharing a Queen bed and I'm NOT looking forward to that.