Swimming!

It was 90 degrees on Tuesday (I think the high was actually 92, but I digress), so it seemed like the perfect day to take the dogs swimming for the first time this year!

It was actually thundering a little and raining when we left home, but I figured that would just help to chase everyone away from our swimming spot for a while. It was fine when we got to the park and lucky us, we did get our little beach all to ourselves for almost the entire time. A couple of teenage boys wandered in after we'd been there nearly a half hour, so I figured we could let them have it.

The dogs loved it! Well, Kaiser didn't love it because his flexi broke and he had to stay on a six foot leash... But the swimming dogs loved it!  :o)  The water was pretty high and the current fairly fast, so I tried to be careful of that when I threw the toys -- but Secret's bumper still ended up wedged in a tree a few times. Sorry, Secret...

Because the water was so high I decided against seeing if Secret still liked the jumping spot. Maybe next time.

Last night I set up the drill posted on Clean Run's Exercise of the Month for May. It wasn't exactly the most motivating set-up for Secret and we were kind of "meh" last night. I say "we" because I just don't think I was giving it my all, either. This probably was not the best final practice to have before a trial weekend....

My first mistake (?) was deciding that Secret was going to work for her Woolie Dog tug rope. I don't know why, but she's just not feeling that thing this year. I got her tugging with me, but as you can see in the video she wasn't terribly jazzed about it. I used her busted up frisbee for her second round and you can see a noticeable difference. I figure the first round is more similar to the energy I get from her in a trial, though. The key is to figure out how to up that...

I actually brought Secret out for a third go on another drill. The bars were still down at 8" from Kaiser & Luke's last turn, but it didn't help. She was just done, even with her Jolly Ball. Yes, it was warm -- around 80 or a bit over -- but I was a little less than thrilled. I put her back in the house for a bit while I brought the boys out to play, then brought Secret back out and just had her run through the tunnel and after her ball to end on a good note.

The boys were awesome. I was struggling a little with Kaiser getting the correct tunnel entry on the second drill, but video doesn't lie and it was all my fault. That right there is why I make these things -- Without video I'd be oblivious to all the ways I screw things up.  :o)

Our first AKC trial is this weekend! I'm looking forward to seeing how things go. Mostly I'm just nervous about getting Kaiser measured. And if I understand it, this measurement might not even count for anything if one of their "certified" measuring people aren't in attendance? I've read the rules about 800 times now and it sure sounds like measurements by the judge don't count for the height card unless they are one of the few certified measuring people. I'm sorry, but that's crap. The good news is that they should have those people at the trials in the Cities -- but I think we're out of luck for this weekend. Oh well.