Limbo

It's that time of year - Shoulder Season - winter leaving, spring not quite here. Feels even more so for me since we're hoping to find a house this spring and move. Maybe we'll find a place, maybe we won't. Which means I can't sign up for races since I don't know where I'll be this summer. Jonny wants to wait to get a new dog until we're moved but I've convinced him to at least consider taking on a new dog if the right one comes along. We're planning on going to a herding trial in a couple of weeks and hopefully I can find some folks who can point me in the direction of a good working breeder.

For a moment we thought we had a perfect situation - one of Jonny's co-workers is looking to re-home his Border Collie from a top working breeder. One of my agility friends just got a pup from this breeder and has 2 others from him and he's a true working breeder, not an agility breeder. At first it sounded like the dog was simply too much dog for his owner who is 70 and looking to retire and wanted a pet, not a busy working dog. Dog is 2 years old. But it turns out the dog sounds really messed up, the owner was using a shock collar on it to train basic obedience/house manners, ugh. They were using a spray bottle too and now the poor thing is so terrified of them that he runs away when the wife waters her plants with one. Also the dog is super inbred, grandparents are half siblings. And now he's not sure he wants to give the dog up. Would love to rescue this dog from this unfortunate situation but also don't want a 'project' and a dog with such serious inbreeding and if he won't give it up anyway there's nothing I can do.

And I would really love a puppy. It would be fun to do all the training. One Mind Dogs had a 1/2 off special deal for a 6 month premium membership and I pulled the trigger on it. SO much information. Watching all the videos of people training their puppies makes me want a puppy all the more. So we'll see. There's no hurry.

Ruby is happy to be an only dog and life is so easy with her. She's the easiest dog ever. It's so easy to train with only one dog as well. I've had multiple dogs for so long, I forgot how easy it can be with only one. So for now we enjoy the ease of one dog life and wait patiently for the right second dog to come along.

I've been doing a lot of walking and hiking, taking a break from running.

Rugged Mountain Dog rockin' the Benjamin Trail

 Went to Golden Gate Canyon State Park last weekend with the intention of snow shoeing but the snow was packed and shallow enough that Yax Trax were fine.  Every one else there had snow shoes, poles, big packs, it was kind of funny.  We blazed right past them because snow shoes slow you down and are a nuisance unless you have deeper, unpacked snow.  I don't use poles because I want to maintain my balance and all those muscles needed for balancing as I age.  Use it or lose it.

Panorama Point, Golden Gate Cnayon State Park

I twisted my left ankle again and landed funny on my right knee on that Betasso hike which leads me to believe that that's what happened last January when I jacked up my knee.  At the time I thought that the ankle twisted first but thinking about it afterwards I assumed it was the knee that had gone out first.  But now that I've twisted that left ankle a couple more times I'm convinced it's the ankle.  I've had a little niggle with it for a while but it's barely been noticeable but now is turning into a problem.  So this week I'm taking it easy, just walks with Ruby, no running except maybe some short agility stuff with her.  But no RUNNING running.  It feels fine today, back to just a niggle here and there so hopefully nothing major going on but something to watch out for.  I see balance/ankle strengthening exercises in my future.  And more weight training.  Been slacking on that, 30 minutes a week, it's not enough.  They're starting a parkour class in a park near my house where I walk Ruby all the time so I'm going to start going there when class is going on to see if I can get ideas.  I think the class will be too hard for me or I'd sign up.  I'll see how hard it looks and maybe change my mind.

I did get a couple few bike rides in in the past few weeks.  Finally made it to Hall Ranch, think it's been 8 months or so since I last went riding there.  One of the disadvantages of coached bike workouts, some trails are hard to use for training and Hall is one of them though maybe I had a few rides this summer that I don't remember.

Longs and Meeker from Hall Ranch

February was so mild, days in the 60's and 70's and barely any snow.  Crazy.  It's nice but climate change is scary and there were some fires though thankfully they were put out quickly.  At least the snowpack is well over normal, mountains have been getting slammed so reservoirs should be good this summer.

I'll work on getting some more Ruby training video.  I shoot it and then get too busy to process it.  Getting ready to take her out to the training field for the first time.  Curious to see how that will go.  Took her to my training partner's yard and she was super distracted but I have an idea for keeping her focused at the training field.  More on that later.