Playing in the Rain

 Today was a soggy, rainy, dreary day. So.. Dan and I danced in the rain. 

I took him to the arena for some groundwork/lunging. I came armed with snacks. We started with our pillar walk and he was pretty good. Then we walked the ground poles. And then, he got sassy and pulled loose. So at that point, I gave up and just took the lead rope off and we played at liberty. We kind of made it up as we went. We played tag but I made sure that he halted and backed up away from me before he got cookies. Never once did I think he was going to run me over. We played with lunging, though he's not very good at it without the lead rope. And I could have easily taught him to rear today. He kept popping up in the front end. It was tempting... sooooo tempting. But I decided to behave and not encouarge that. Today at least. ;) 

We also jogged side by side and he's better at that. I managed to get him to trot the poles a few times. We also played with side passing over the poles. And we did the pole straddle a few times too. And then we did some more pillar walking. He was getting a bit nippy... mouthing at my jacket and hands for treats but he was mostly polite about it. More playful than anything. And he knew better so he was being careful. I still gave him stern looks a few times. 

It was fun though! And... he looked pretty darn sound behind. There were a few moments where he wasn't pushing off. But overall he looked pretty darn good! Although he looked more lame in the front end. Not lame. Weak... asymmetric. And he tripped hard a time or two. So I definitely think he needs to go back to work to get those shoulders working. I'm guessing that it's a combination of compensatory muscles as well as actually building up his atrophied muscles, but clearly 2 months off was not good for that. 

So... this month we'll do lots of walking and water treadmill and groundwork and hills and see what we can accomplish. 

And.. because the weather was not conducive to photos (and we were having too much fun), here's photos of his Reserve Champion Ribbon from the Obstacle Course. So.. maybe we can do that if nothing else.