A new toy for running!

I have looked off and on for one of the hands-free leash setups for running with the dogs, but always balked at the price of them. The skijorring rigs, especially, always seemed so spendy. Last week a friend was asking about various brands on Facebook and one of our friends piped up that she was very happy with her gear from Iron Doggy. I was not familiar with this brand, so I went and looked it up -- and liked what I saw, so I decided to bite the bullet and give it a shot.

The shipping was super fast! I ordered it at the end of last week and it was scheduled to be delivered Tuesday (today), but it actually was in the mail when I got home last night! I wasn't going to go for a run at 10:00 p.m., though, so it had to wait for today. And unfortunately I also desperately needed to finish mowing my lawn that I started on Sunday (and then it grew so much that I had to do the whole thing tonight anyhow...), so I just took the girls out for a quick two-mile spin to see how things went.

When I opened the package I was dismayed to see that I'd somehow ordered the short leash (the "sidekick") as my second leash. I thought I'd ordered both the same length and wasn't sure how it was going to work out to have two different length leashes. It was actually pretty perfect, as the length of a big dog on the short leash works out to be pretty much identical to where the little dogs run on the long leash. It wouldn't work out as well to have both of the little dogs out at the same time, but it rarely happens and I think the short leash is still long enough that it could work out. Kizzy would be stuck on the short one, though, since Kaiser has some weird aversion to being anywhere near me when we run...

I'm really happy with this setup! I haven't had my hands free while running for quite a while (well, I suppose the treadmill, but I think my form is different on there anyhow). The dogs didn't pull me along as much as I'd hoped, but that's probably a good thing.  :o)  Kizzy's leash actually stayed bouncy and loose for pretty much all but when we saw a bunny and while Secret did tend to stay out near the end of the leash, she didn't feel like she was pulling as much as she usually does (and I've come to rely on!). I'm sure it's the elastic and this is probably a good thing. There is a chance that I'm being pulled along more than I realize, too -- or maybe it helps to have my arms free -- because my pace was actually fairly decent for this run, even despite getting stopped by traffic three times. I can't complain.

Secret and I went to visit Dr. Marta for another adjustment yesterday, so Secret should be good to go for our 3-day agility extravaganza this weekend here in La Crosse. There wasn't much of a puppy update to report -- Marta tried doing an ultrasound on Gwen last week and they didn't see anything, but the progesterone test pretty much said 100% positive that she was pregnant. There's a good chance that maybe there are only one or two puppies in there and they were missed on ultrasound. Who knows. She was going to try again and see if they could see anything. If there are only one or two puppies then I don't need to worry about finding a way to say no when I desperately want one.  :o)  I have a friend who might be interested, too, so maybe I could pawn one off on him and live vicariously...

I have officially started at Petco finally! I'll be making my first employee discount purchase after my shift on Thursday, to buy some more FreshPet Vital for the trial this weekend. I tried that stuff before our last AKC trial and I'm hooked. The dogs love it and I don't have to cook or cut anything. Sold!

I was not 100% sure that I was hired to be a dog trainer because all of my hiring paperwork just listed me as a sales associate. Everyone keeps introducing me as the next dog trainer, though, so I guess it will happen eventually. Right now I'm just taking in the culture and learning how everything works. So far so good and I'm enjoying my time there. The dogs seem to be doing okay with the craziness of me leaving the house at 7:00 a.m. and getting home at 9:30 p.m. -- but thankfully it's not an every day occurrence, so we'll be okay.

In addition to our fun three-day weekend coming up, I also entered one day of AKC on Memorial Day over in Sheboygan, WI. It's an outdoor trial, and for some reason I've been wanting to do one of those again. We really don't see too many around here anymore. I figure we train outside, maybe the dogs would like to run outside for a change. I figure if the weather sucks I'll just toss the one day of entries and stay home. I hope it's nice, though!