Saturday, June 30, 2012

Try Something...



In life there are some things we will never understand. Some things can be pondered and theories conjured, but no answers will arise.  Whacking your head against a brick wall only gets you so far, when you stop you’ll find you’re still dizzy, your vision still hazy, but eventually, I promise this, you will come down from the pain-induced high and your heartbeat will slow. It might still sting, but your mind will level. So the question to be asked isn’t in fact “Why?”but rather “How long should I sit here doing nothing?”
Isn’t it just sometimes best to stop asking questions and just do something about it? You can come up with a million theories and possibilities and come up with all the outcomes possible, but you’ll never know until you just pick something to try. It might not work. So what? Try again. Try, try, try, try again. If you really truly want to accomplish something then you won’t give up until you are satisfied. Each problem, speed bump, issue, conflict, whatever you feel like calling it, pops up in our lives for a reason. If authors don’t put words down in a book without a reason, then things don’t happen without a reason.
You may have everything to lose, but if you never try you never had a chance at getting it in the first place.



Thursday, June 28, 2012

A game worth playing...


Do agility because you love it, because you love the dog, because you love the journey…not because you want people to know your name.

People always ask me where I want to go in the dog world. They ask if I want to teach seminars, if I want to have my own building, if I want to travel the world teaching agility. Honestly, I’m nowhere near qualified to do those things yet, but in the future I suppose I could. Never quite thought about it, not fully anyways. Then there are some people I talk to, with great dogs and great skills, all they ever talk about is making it “to-the-top”. How wonderful it will be to be that person, who everyone looks up to, who everyone wants to be. I just don’t get it. Why would you ever focus on that? There are so many other things you could be doing with your dog or yourself to build your skills, and not for the sake of being the best, but because you love the game. It is after all a game, and not a high-stakes in it to win it game either. It doesn’t have to be ALL OR NOTHING, as so many I see make it out to be. I go into the ring each time with a million things I want to succeed at, not just to obtain a Q, or to get 1st place. I don’t think the sport would be any fun for me if all I wanted was to win. Winning is nice yes, but you can’t always win, and you can’t change the results to match your goals. What if you have the best run of your life, fast, smooth, perfect in your eyes, but someone else goes faster? If your goal was to win, you’ve lost. If your goal was to get all your front crosses, or to use a new skill successfully, or to break your personal yps, or to simply do your best…then you my friend will be a winner no matter what the score board says. 


Jenna rocking her USA gear early.

EO Team USA 2012 <3 

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Now who is laughing?

A quick Bazinga Update! Haven't had much to do with her, she is truly my mom's dog, but I did get to play with her today at class just for fun. I'll get to help train her through sequencing this fall, which is like my favorite thing to train ever. Just sayin.
ZING

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Oh chute!

You just gotta love when the dogs do something really silly, like whimzy. Who today decided not only am I not allowed to layer a jump while she takes the chute, but also the chute is not longer an obstacle we understand. Like really Mz? It is a CHUTE! haha. That dog is such a character. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdLtU1QIFkk&feature=youtu.be

Other then our many fail attempts at the chute our runs tonight were gorgeous.  We ran a course for European Open prep with Jenna and Demon and then reversed it for the baby does. Jenna nailed it. So proud of her, my little super star. Then Diane made me run with all rears. 

Gosh you know I really really don't like rears. Jenna runs slow with them, and Whimzy well maybe I should train Whimzy rears. That would at least be a start. Maybe one day I'll be able to run with them and not feel awkward. The ironic thing is I used to run with all rears, then one day Diane said how about we front Jenna. Then that was it I suppose. Interesting how you develop your own personal system with your dogs. I guess that's one of the things that makes handling someone else's dog difficult because they don't understand your own personal language. Hmm. Gotta love figuring out handling.

Blaze

Bunny

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Worries...

You know, I have my first international competition next month. It's one of the biggest agility competitions in the world. Really competitive trainers and handlers compete there to show everyone they are the best. Should I maybe like start worrying about how we are gonna do? Or is it totally normal for me to like be chilled out and just going with the flow? I know I should probably start training Jenna again...that would help right? Okay new goal: Prep for European Open

Whimzy, now that one worries me. She is only 18 months and yet doing so well already...and at the same time I feel quite far behind. I was hoping to be getting scores for nationals by now, but we are still 2 Q's away in standard and 4 in jumpers. This means crunch time in the fall, but even then will we have enough time to get our scores? I'm not sure, I really would like to take her to the 2013 nationals, it's not necessary of course. But it would be very very nice! Yet I don't want to push her to get something we can very well do next year. Even without nationals we can still get all our scores for World Team Tryouts next may. Now that, that would be nice. My baby dog at World Team Tryouts, yes. I like the sound of that. Granted who knows what will happen between now and then?
 I suppose I should just wing it and see what happens right?
Right. 

Jenna <3

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Whimzical Update: 18 months

Time flies when you are having fun doesn't it? My baby is already 18 months! Right about now I feel like stalking down a few USDAA shows for the fall...but I will refrain. Got a few more goals to get down in AKC first. But be warned this time next year Ms. Mz will be hitting up the grand prix and steeplechase classes ;) I honestly can't wait to see what we will have accomplished by then, and looking back I can't believe how wonderful she has been for me. She cares so much about doing it right, I can already tell she is a bit of a perfectionist...which I don't mind because honestly I have those moments myself. Although we try not to drill somethings too many times. Don't want to tear any young muscles! Trail wise I think we are where I expected to be, 3 months in and just tipping into excellent. Not too shabby. But honestly handling wise this dog, oh my gosh I love this dog. She is always right there, I can't believe that she can already handle international sequences. Granted tight has always been our forte, those silly open jumpers courses on the other hand. GRR! But today is about our good things, not the bad, or rather not bad but just challenging. Honestly I can't complain much about anything Mz does, although it never hurts for my handling to get better!

This dog <3

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Q the stress...


I always say that Q-ing isn’t everything, and never will it be. At least not for me, it would just ruin the game. But I do think the confidence boost that comes from a hard-earned Q is priceless. Whimzy got her first Open Jumpers leg today. For a while I joked that we would never get one. Honestly just having such a smooth run with her was just fabulous. Really gives me some hope for the future, not that I was doubting whimzy’s ability to compete in agility at all, but just in general it is nice to have that feeling of being connected. Funny how natural that connection feels when you raise the dog yourself, but building the connection with someone else’s dog…boy oh boy that can be a bear. Take Nikki for example, I started working with her in October of this year. We’ve had some ups and downs, luckily she loves food and didn’t mind running with someone else. But for me it was hard learning to love her, because she wasn’t mine. Now after having been through so much together in such a short amount of time, I can’t imagine not having her be part of my agility journey. She has taught me SO much about training and stress management I can’t even stress how much of a difference she has made on my performance in the ring. Really sometimes the most challenging dogs can make you a better trainer and handler then someone who can win every run every time.

8 MACH points, 742 to go :)