New Beginnings

Well the weather is finally starting to break here on the Island and things are no longer in a snowbound holding pattern! It's amazing how a little snow; ok, it was a lot of snow, can grind a place to a halt! But I digress...

Today, OneX and I managed to get to our second agility class for December. Oh wait, it's now January... Ok, so fast forward 3 weeks of agility classes into January. We had a great class today. Normally we have 4 dogs in the class but today there was only 2 of us. Maybe some people are still a bit frazzled by the snow but we took it in stride. OneX was a star and was running like a pro. But I see I am really going to have to concentrate on reinforcing the startline wait or face the same issue (non-existent start line wait) as with Soot. We so don't want to go there. I guess I'll have to reinforce, reinforce and then introduce the "Edmonton twitch"... We were only doing 10" jumps in class but I told the instructor that I would like the jumps to be gradually raised over the next few weeks as OneX's fitness increases as he is going to have to jump 26" in AAC. She paused, "Oh, you're not going to wait to start him in competition when he can go into Veterans for the lower jump height?" Huh? OneX will be fine in Regulars at 26" and if he shows any issues, we'll move to Specials, but I'm not waiting 4 more years to find out...

Of course the lovely aspect of all of the snow melting is that all the horse manure that has, up until now, been frozen and buried in 2' of snow is now thawing out. Oh what a lovely sloppy mess that is! To top it off, the ponies need their toes done and boy that is going to be so much fun for the farrier. Manure caked, soaked legs - I'd hose them off but with the horses having no indoor stalls or warm water, I really don't want to soak their legs. Yuck... Gotta love mud season...

Classes have now begun again for the spring semester. Isn't that a lovely thought: Spring. Not that the winter has been much of a burden out here but I always think Spring is such a cheery thought. Anyway, classes have begun again and I am looking forward to getting back in the swing of it. One thing is for sure, I'm enjoying university so much more this time around. Could it be the courses, or simply the maturity of the student?