This one's not sad.

Since we live in the city I did a huge amount of my training in an isolated large back section of the local park. Living in Arizona all training must be done very early in the mornings in the summer. It can get to be 100 degrees by 10am!

One morning just at daylight, I was working with one of our young dogs, Dee. We were working on whistle and directional training for field trials. All park work is done on a 20 foot check cord. That check cord can be dangerous to humans when a dog is in a full out run. Keeping oneself from getting tangled quickly becomes a top priority.

Somehow Dee got behind me and I blew the whistle giving her the "up front" command. She spun around and came barreling forward. I wasn't quick enough and that darned check cord caught me right behind the knees. I went down flat on my back. On my way down I heard my neck, go crack, crack, crack, as I screamed "Dee here". She didn't have time to stop and hit the end of it and the poor dog did a back flip. She got up shook herself off and rushed over to me and pounced on me thinking it was play time.

Laying there flat on my back with a brown dog happily bouncing on top of me, all I could think of was, "I hope no one saw that". My next thought was "how in the heck am going to get up if my neck is broken, and what will happen to Dee in the heat if no one finds us"? Though somewhat dazed, I finally managed to calm Dee, check to see if I was paralyzed (I wasn't) and eventually ease myself off the ground. Thank goodness there wasn't a soul around to witness my fall from grace!

The rest of the training session went as smooth as the velvety hair on a shorthairs ears.