Craziness

I told Mawson on sunday that I had some crazy ideas. As he knows me well, he looked a bit scared, wondering what I had invented now.

Just to keep mister entertained, I have decided to start/train for two more types of trials: Rally-Obedience and Endurance!

Rally-O training classes are in the evening during the week, so that in itself is a challenge, as 1) we work full time and mainly 2) mister pup settles for his evening nap quite early and demands his dinner before 8pm.

He was looking at me weirdly when I didn't take him for our usual evening outing. And really began to fear the worst when I started preparing the training bag and treats. However, we went there and he was a little angel. He worked so well, even considering that this first class was mostly a lot of explanation to get me to understand the different stations and what to do to minimise my messing up. The future classes will be more of actually doing the different courses, and I think that this will definitely become a regular thing.

From the web and one of the latest
club newsletter front cover

Now onto the Endurance trial.... Well that one is a real crazy idea.
That trial consists of a course of 20km divided into 3 legs of 8-6-6 kms with pauses of 15-20-15mins in between and vet checks. The pup has to run it obviously but the two footed minion can either ride a bike or run (no motor allowed!). Now, I'm ok with a bike but not fantastic and I'm actually a bit scared of ending up injuring one of us, or both... So I have decided that if we do it, that will be running together!!!!!
Also, 20 kms is a long way, I give you that, but feasible. What I didn't catch at first was that the event is actually timed. And you have to cover those 20 kms at a pace of 10km/h !!!!!!  I think that they will need to get a doctor and an ambulance next to the vet for me, and that won't be Mawson refusing to do the "willingness" test at each pause but me. But I guess it is only fair that I suffer a bit if I ask Mawson to run all that way. So that means a looooot of training. Mawson is nearly there, I'm so far off that I am wondering if one year is enough. Maybe it's best to make sure the pups are well grown so two years of training would be best, no?

One thing that amused me as well is that it says in the rules that you can be stopped if the dog continually lags behind. Basically you are not allowed to drag your poor dog over 20kms, which is fair enough and actually a pretty good common sense one to have. However, given the first real run we've just done together, I am wondering if they apply the same rule if the minion lags behind the whole way?....

Let's see how those different new things go, I really would like to get the title of "ET" for Mawson, just so he can phone home, ghehehehe.