Know when to say when

On Thursday of this week, Phoenix and I are going to jump back into the Open/Utility rings after our summer off. We're entered in 3 days of a local 5 day cluster.

I honestly don't expect all of our training issues to have been miraculously resolved in the last two months but I do feel much better about the direction our training is going.

In keeping with my training goal of focusing on what we CAN do this week, not what we CAN'T, here's a list of how to know it's time to end a training session. Yes, I have ended a training session at one time or another because of every single one of these reasons. (Some are while training at home, others while training away from home or at a motel with friends during a trial weekend.)

I didn't say they were GOOD reasons. Well, at the time, they sounded like very good reasons. And some of them were. It's probably a wonder Phoenix has gotten as far as he has.

• Your fingers are bleeding and you need a band-aid(s).

• You have a split lip.

• You ran out of cheese because you ate too much of it yourself.

• Your dumbbell broke.

• The gloves are shredded.

• The toy got ripped in half.

• The toy got stuck in the limb of a tree (really, who threw it up there?)

• The neighbor was walking up the lane.

• The neighbor's dog was walking up the lane.

• A skunk was walking up the lane.

• The Farmer was yelling out the window "YOURMOTHERISONTHEPHONE."

• The wind keeps blowing the ring gates over.

• You were tired of listening to your older dog howling.

• You can't stand getting one more hole in your shirt.

• A lightning strike.

• It started to rain.

• It started to snow.

• There was a tornado on the ground.

• The pizza came.

• Your dog is so obsessed with a nearby cat that he is basically dysfunctional.

• You are so hungry you are basically dysfunctional.

• Friends with margaritas arrived.

• The Farmer is yelling out the window "MICHELEISONTHEPHONE!"

• "NCIS" starts in 3 minutes.

• A new Harry Potter book arrived that afternoon.

• The wind is blowing the jumps across the yard.

• Things were going so well you decided to quit while you were ahead.

• Things were going so badly you decided to quit while you were ahead.

Happy training, everyone!