Thoughts on Nationals

As I mentioned before, this was my first nationals event since 1999, and Panic's first ever "big" event as well. So, even though at 1st glance we didn't do too great, I am honestly thrilled at how we did. I overcame my nerves which is huge. Other than our "oops" in each run, the runs were really pretty good!!

This last week was quite an emotional one. One of our friends who was in L'ville had a dog pass away at home over the weekend. Another friend in L'ville had a dog who was just recently diagnosed with cancer not be able to run at all at nationals and he had to put him to sleep Monday morning after returning home. Another friend who wasn't in L'ville also had to put their dog to sleep over the weekend. Watching Houston's victory lap during the vet's AA thing on Sunday.

It all made you think about your dog and why we do agility... is it for the competitive glory, or for the bond between us? (There's nothing wrong with being competitive, I am competitive myself. I want to do the best we can do, and if the best we can do is beating dogs at a national level, then I would strive for that. But if we're not physically at that level, that's ok too.) All of this has helped me come to a decision. Panic is moving to Performance. In Steeple quarters, she wasn't terribly slow, but I just felt like I was dragging her along the course. I don't feel like that when we run 16" in AKC. She has slowed down some over the year jumping 22", and still is fast at 16". She doesn't appear uncomfortable jumping 22, and still Qs, is still competitive locally, etc. I am sure I could run her at 22 for a few more years, accruing more Qs and doing well. However, the fact that she runs faster at 16" tells me she is more comfortable there. And does it really matter what program we run in? Not really. She wasn't a top competitive dog at 22", she won't be at P16" either (at nationals that class is DARN competitive!). The titles being championship or perf don't matter. What matters is that Panic loves to run agility, and I love doing it with her. I want to be able to do that for as long as possible, and I think jumping 16" will make that last longer. I always knew her career at 22" wouldn't be super long... being a 17" tall dog with straight rear angulation just makes it tough!! I can't wait now to run her in Perf. I think it will be interesting to see if when she "gets" that 16" is what she's running now, she starts extending more. I have run her at a BRAG starter/adv trial before in P1, so we have to finish our P1 and P2 titles, and it will be fun to run the "easy" stuff again.

I look forward to running agility with my awesome little yellow dog for as long as possible. Her smile after we run tells me she doesn't care how we do, or what program she competes in... she just loves me and the game.