The Murfreesboro agility trial was held at the Middle Tennessee State University. Each morning, the hounds and I would set off for an hour long walk with a stop at a field to play fetch for a few minutes. In the past, I found myself conserving my hounds' energy before competing, but Riley seems to need a very long warm up to take the edge off.
Generally, I like to find a nearby park for our recreational walking at agility trials, but it actually turned out to be good therapy walking around the busy campus and encountering all of the vehicle and construction noises. After dealing with Reagan's noise phobias to engines and other noises, I find myself noticing every sound now.
Seven and Riley noticed some of the sounds as well, but notice is all they did. They calmly continued on. It was good for me to be surrounded by all of the sounds with my dogs unaffected.
In fact, the girls were much too busy squirrel hunting. They were dismayed by the leashes, but I told them that I knew of a greyhound that caught a squirrel on leash a couple of months ago. And just recently, a greyhound at the Southeastern Greyhound Adoption kennel caught and ate a bird while on leash. He was so fast the vet tech did not have time to even blink an eye. Impressive! Fortunately, the girls were not successful and returned to the trial without any live (dead) prizes.
And here is a rare sight... so rare, I had to take a picture with my phone. Seven actually resting in her crate with me out of sight.
I was told that Seven started shredding her fleece pad when I left with Riley. I am thinking about separating them at trial sites if seeing Riley and I walk away is her biggest issue. Otherwise, she did fairly well with me coming and going. Maybe one day, Riley's agility trial downtime habits will rub off on Seven.
