Will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

We had the best trial experience to date this past weekend.  For the first time at our “home” field of Low Country Dog Agility (LCDA), I was relaxed, no upset tummy and no real nerves.  Yippee!!  But, most importantly, Jefferson had a few great runs without shutting down to stand and look at me.  In fact, in three of his runs, he was the fastest I have seen him run in a long time.  I was particularly proud of his debut in Advanced Gamblers – winning 1^st place, 25 points and running fast and confident.  That’s my boy!   During the 25 second opening, I had planned a lot of running and a flowing course that would encourage him to keep moving.  My strategy was successful - he “got” the gamble except that he launched off the down contact of his running dogwalk.  Hey, that’s the chance I take with having a running dogwalk that we have not proofed in a while.  (I have been focusing on the motivation part of training more than reinforcing obstacle performance.  Lesson learned.)  Here’s the awesome run:

Still another run that I am equally proud of is our Snookers run.   This is the best-looking 4^thplace finish I have ever seen and am as proud of this as I am of any “Q!”  Again, I planned as flowing of a course possible based on the position of the three red obstacles.  Jefferson stayed with me, ran fast and even was not offended, i.e. “shut down” when I called him back to take the tunnel in the opening (which he did!)   Unfortunately, after he made it over jump 7-A, he hauled butt past the 6 weave poles (7-B) so we earned 31 points in this Snooker run.  But, boy can he run…and fast too!  

Finally, I was so proud of our jumpers run - we were running so smooth and fast.  Again, Jefferson was quick, confident and staying with me while we ran this course.  Oops…J-Dawg rocketed too fast around the pinwheel near the end and headed straight to the finish jump.  Oh, well…we both had a blast and were running together as a team.  Yay!!  

I could not be more proud of Jefferson.  I can see results from our training and my implementing Stuart Mah’s advice to run whatever course Jefferson and I have made-up and have a party of praise and cookies at the end (outside the ring of course!)  I set Team J-Dawg goals and accomplished them all; not a one of them was to earn a “Q.”  Ironically, we performed more as a team and ran better when I changed my priorities.  I wanted us to run together as a team, to have fun and to reduce the amount of stress on Jefferson (and me too!).

For me, I have learned the biggest lesson of all – to remember to have fun and to not compare myself and my dog to other competitors.  So what if we are still in Starters?!  What’s the rush to move up anyways?  We have a lot of “kinks” to work out and being in Starters gives us the opportunity to perfect our team so that when (notice I did not say “if”) we advance, we will be well-prepared.  Much like whenever I ran the Savannah Half-Marathon last November, I was content to just finish and enjoy being in the moment during my 13.1 mile run.  I ran my own race and did not compare my performance to the lithe and nimble Kenyans.   

So, too, is agility a half-marathon of sorts…handlers and their doggie partners develop their unique training plans, log in the hours of training in order to gain the satisfaction of running their own race.  This weekend, we truly enjoyed running our own race and having fun being in the moment....that is what it is all about.  And all the rest is just gravy!