Agility

I went yesterday to the indoor arena for the end of season funmatch. We have a lot of students who will be getting ready to trial by fall so this was their first funmatch- I thought it was important to go and support them. They all did great- it is so neat to see such improvement and confidence in the handler and the dogs! We don't run courses ever in training- small sequences, and fine tuning handling, discrimination, learning new skills, etc are much more important than running courses. It is neat to be able to see people putting it all together, and using the handling they've learned to succesfully get around a course. They all did great!

I left early to get home to the unhappy puppy so missed the last course, and the packing up and unloading at the outdoor site. I have mixed feelings about moving outdoors-

We have lots of wind here- like stake the jumps, double sandbag the tunnels kind of wind

The temperature is never consistent- too hot, too windy, too cold...it could snow again...

Gophers- the field is riddled with gophers, we will have to fill in gopher holes over, and over, and over again

Mice- the field is riddles with mice, last year they ate the chute.

Traffic. The field is on the side of a super busy highway. Boone melts. It will be a good month before I will even be able to get him to do anything out there...I have been working on the traffic thing with him- sometimes he is okay, other times he freezes and can't focus. It is frustrating.

But....
Not having to take down equipment each time will be fabulous
Having more than one night a week to train will be awesome.
No more horse shit smell - instead we get to smell cow shit :o)
No more dirt, and barn yuckiness

Not that any of that really matters at this point- There is no definite timeline or really anything definite when it comes to Pixel's mange. We have been off of Agility for a full month now. It sucks. Like really, really, really sucks. Our first time back will be at Kim Collins Outreach. Nice eh? That is of course if everything has cleared up. It is three weeks away.

Wicca is pretty miserable and was very interested in all the barn smells on me yesterday when I got home. Poor Girl. She probably misses agility as much as me!