It Was Bound To Happen...

....the 120 cm ball freaking popped. :(

Le sigh.  I brought the giant thing out of retirement because our center wide talent show (which we did a few years back) was in danger of being cancelled.  I agreed to do the giant dog on the giant ball routine, but with a week to prepare, I realized that I should probably practice a little bit with Heffner.  Things have been going great the past few days until last night.  Heffner got up on the ball, things were going fine, and then it just tore.  To be honest, I probably should have expected it.  It's been sitting in my hot garage since I moved in and I haven't inflated it until last week.  The material isn't meant to hold up to that kind of heat stress, even while being stored inside the house after inflation.  This time, I'm not going to bother replacing it.  FitPaws has more than enough fun and new equipment that's more manageable for me with a giant dog, that it's not worth the cost of replacing a ball that size.  In the mean time, the audience will just have to appreciate a giant dog on an overly large inflated peanut. ;)      

In memory of this giant ball, I thought I'd post the links to a few posts that it has so graciously made an appearance in:

Conditioning

The Evolution of the Ball Studio

DVD of the Month

The National Continued - Parades

We're Back!

Darwin's Post on Dane Outreach's Education Day

Our "act" for the talent show is going to be a little different than the last time.  I'm tweaking a few things.  I haven't worked on a lot of these tricks with Heffner in quite some time.  And of course, he and I are getting older. ;)  It's been really exciting getting back into working with the conditioning equipment again.  Heffner and I both missed this fun training time together.  His eyes just light up and he gets so excited!!  Working on some of the "old" tricks has also given me ideas for new tricks that I want to work on, that unfortunately won't be ready in time for the talent show.  It's gotten both Heffner and I up and working on fun things and building on what we already know.  All happy good things. 

Looking back on the old posts, pictures, and videos, I am thankful that I have these memories to happily look back on and relive.  Good memories with my wonderful dogs.