Snow Fun

Once again Tuesday's agility practice is cancelled due to 10" of snow.  No, none of this snow is from last week, my yard was melted down to the grass.

April is the second snowiest month but still, this is getting kind of ridiculous.

Though aside from missing agility practice I don't mind all that much.  Thankfully Tuesday is my rest day.

Strummer doesn't believe in rest days.

At least the sun is out and the snow is winding down so this may finally be the end of the spring dumpings.  In a day or two I'll be complaining about the heat.

I have an indoor agility trial this weekend and with temps. expected in the 70's I am a bit concerned that it'll get too hot.  Especially since neither Strum nor I are acclimated to that kind of heat.

I'm also bummed that I'll be inside on such nice spring days but oh well.  I only signed up for 3 runs each day so hopefully I can get out a little early and enjoy the sunshine.  I did manage to get out to the field on Sunday for some solo practice.  Dogwalk is getting better with some remedial work.  Once the yard melts I'll set up the plank/table and I think a few refresher sessions will have him ready for the weekend.

At the field I set up a small sequence to practice wraps using different handling methods - Ketschker vs Front Cross vs Forward Send.  The ground was still a bit tacky so I was able to use his paw prints to trace his path after each rep.  The Ketschker ended up way tighter than the others.  It would be helpful if I had video to compare execution of the moves but I knew I wouldn't have time this week for the project of processing the video so I didn't bother.

Course was blue jump/tunnel/yellow jump back to tunnel.

The tightest path was with the Ketschker, next tightest was the front cross, widest was the forward send.

This is not to say the tightest turn was the fastest.  But it was by far the 'prettiest' and by that I mean Strum had nice collection before the turn and knew where he was going with the Ketschker.  With the others he turned more on the flat on the landing side and had more concussion to his shoulders.  Also worked on some Top Spin just for fun.  I had a similar set-up to last time and went much closer to the jump this time, had more of a pivot and remembered to leave myself enough room to allow for a little motion so he wouldn't stall out.  No photos or videos unfortunately but it did feel more comfortable this time and he hit the weaves correctly every time.

Now if only the snow will melt.  Someone decided to express his opinion about missing agility practice today and being cooped up yesterday during the storm.