I'M GOING STIR CRAZY!!!

It's just not *right*, having no agility competitions to attend! I'm unmotivated to practice, too, although of course this enforced extended absence would be the ideal time to work on fixing various challenges.

I'm guessing that I didn't get into the New Year's weekend trial, either, since the organization that's hosting it hasn't posted my name on their "accepted entries" web site, but I have no clue otherwise. I don't know whether they didn't get it or they haven't been updating their web site or what. That's very frustrating.

I did set up a little practice scenario in the yard yesterday. Decided to take down the A-frame and set it aside--it's been up since I bought it shortly after moving in, and it takes up a huge amount of space, physically and visually. It's so danged heavy that it took me probably 10 minutes to get it off to the side of the yard. It does dismantle into 4 pieces, but I'm not sure that that would have taken me less time.

Then I came to the conclusion once again that that danged lilac shrub is going to have to go. Sure,it's gorgeous--for about 3 weeks in the spring. All winter it's naked and its sticks aren't all that interesting or attractive. And it's RIGHT in the middle of my agility area! I've been trying hard to go around it, but it really does make a mess of things. Argh. So much for the landscape plan--

Anyway, after I finally got my scenario set up, I worked Tika and Jake through it, discovering that *neither* of them are really working their weave pole entries nearly as well as I thought they did (actually discovered that at the seminar in november).

To get Casey out of the way, I shoved him into the house and put a chair in front of the doggie door. Within minutes, he was out in the yard, apparently being small enough to squeeze through the 4" of space under the chair at the bottom of the doggie door.

So then I shoved him out into the front hallway and closed the doors to the kitchen/access to dog door. A couple of minutes later he showed up in the yard again. Doors were still closed, so he must have figured out to go down the 1/3 flight of stairs to my office and jump up through the wrought-iron railing between there and the kitchen.

So I had to take the doggie door out entirely to keep him in the house. Normally I just hook him to a leash next to the porch, but I was using the whole area for running my dogs.

So to make up for it, at the end of my session with my dogs, I worked a little with him on jumps & tunnels. Danged beast has learned how to go into the *left* side of the tunnel but won't go into the *right* side?! Go figure.

Anyway, as I attempted to get him to go through, I shortened up and mostly straighted out the tunnel onto the patio. Then I tossed a toy & shoved him in and started to move to the other side, but he screeched to a halt, turned, and came back out. So I screeched to a halt--and fell on my kiester on the concrete.

This is not a good thing for someone who has had repeated problems with the disks in her lower back. So I ended up attemptng to overdose on antiinflammatories, icing & heating my rearmost part repeatedly while sprawled on the couch.

I *think* the nerves down the backs of my legs are a bit more painful today than yesterday, but I'm not in horrific pain, so perhaps I treated it quickly enough and long enough.

Have I mentioned what a pain dogs are?

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