Donation model

Recently Matt Kruse the author of Social Fixer published a blog on why he likes the donation model for his software.  I started thinking about this again as it might apply to products that agility people provide.  If someone provided a free download I would gladly donate money to them if I liked the product.  I would do this for two reasons.  My first reason would be to compensate the person for their work in producing the product and secondly to encourage them to continue producing more products.

I think that there would still have to be some sort of copyright on the product to prevent other people from making money from it. 

In today's world it is easy for people to copy or even rent out DVDs.  The authors/producers are not being compensated.  I would like to see a world where people want to compensate the authors/producers for their work.

Some people in the music industry are providing free downloads and asking for donations.  Some are having better success than others.  I would like to think that dog trainers are different from the masses that download music.  We reward our dogs when they do something we like so that they will keep doing it so why wouldn't we reward people as well. We might even jackpot people (i.e. donate more than what the person was expecting).

New Winter Agility Jacket

Here are some pictures of my latest jacket from Discovery Trekking Outfitters (DTO) in Campbell River, B.C.  I got great service from them again.  I liked my spring jacket that was red and thought that my new winter jacket should be red too.  My old black winter jacket has held up pretty well over the past few years.  I ended up wearing it as an every day winter jacket so it got plenty of use. I will still wear it when I am in the mood for an all black jacket.

I got the same features - hood, full zipper, reflective piping (which is glowing from the flash), and back tug toy pocket.  The fabric is Polartec Power Shield.    The extra length (2") is perfect when walking the dogs.  If I need it to be shorter I found that I can just roll it under.

I should mention again that I find the back tug toy pocket quite useful for other things besides toys.

What can go wrong

Today while working on some drills Nessa hit a jump standard.   The quality of the video is a bit grainy and it is actually foggy inside the training facility.  The jump standard is PVC and has the Clip and Go Jump Cup Strips.



As far as I can tell at this point Nessa is fine but I am not sure that she would have been if the jump had been a different design. 

What might have helped even in this case would be a longer bar (I think that it is only 4 feet) and perhaps if the jump had been a winged jump.