Secret's Journey: Two days in a row!

Okay, so this is incredibly tardy... The last couple of nights I've ended up sitting at the computer until almost 9:00 and didn't feel like staying there any longer to do a blog post. :o) So here's just a quick update before I get too far behind.

We got to play AGAIN on Monday after work! Although it was incredibly windy and I didn't think we'd get through it without all of the jumps blowing over (we did), it was 67 degrees outside and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to set up something and play with the dogs. We did our first Happy Hurdle Day course of the year! We have a whole winter's worth of courses to catch up on, although admittedly not all of Ann's courses appeal to me. Some are just a little *too* "international" in flavor and probably not quite motivating enough to do on a continuous basis.

This one was fun, though, and everyone did great! Kaiser (surprisingly!) probably did the best and knocked out a couple of clean runs straight out of the gate. Secret was lacking a bit in the motivation/speed department, which leads me to believe even more strongly that she really needs to get in to see the chiro. Hopefully it doesn't affect her too terribly this weekend. I just entered Secret & Kaiser in a day of AKC over in New Berlin on 4/20, so I should probably try to get her in before that and not wait until before the La Crosse trial in May. Kizzy also did super, but I did have to switch her from toys to food due to the distraction of BIRDS landing all over the freaking yard during her turn. She tried hard, but the allure was too strong and she just couldn't keep focused. Once the food came out things went much better.

I forgot to mention in my last post that we went hiking this weekend! Saturday was a nice day in the upper 40's/low 50's and I -- foolishly -- thought that maybe the trails up at the experimental forest would be starting to clear. This was based on my snow-free yard, which has absolutely no correlation to anything located at the top of the bluffs....

The trails were still completely snow & ice covered, which made for some slow-going at times. This was preferable to the top of the fields, though, which were mostly mud with patches of snow interspersed. My choice of footwear was based on the expectation of at least mostly-dry land, so I was woefully unprepared.

We put in five miles that day, which made for some very happy, albeit muddy, dogs. Thankfully there was enough snow towards the end of the trails that the dogs got at least somewhat cleaned off before getting into the van. Everyone had towels in their crates and by the time we got home most of the nastiness had come off the dogs and into the towels, so clean-up was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be! I love having wash-n-wear dogs. :o)

Lest you think spring has actually sprung in Wisconsin, we are back to crap weather again. Yesterday had a high of 34 with snow flurries. Today is supposed to be in the 40s so we will likely try to squeeze in a bit more agility fun at home tonight, but then the weather is taking another turn for the worse. The real kicker is Thursday night through Friday --- of course we would have winter storm warnings when I have to drive across the state! The original forecast was for sunny and 50s on Friday, which I thought would be perfect for crating out of the van at the trial. Now I'm undecided and should probably plan for all circumstances in case it ends up being too cold. Sigh. The winter that never ends.