This is a report from the Big Dog Show.

OK. Let's cut to the chase. Big dog show. USDAA DAM Team and Tournaments in Santa Rosa. Otterpop got the elusive Team Q! Ruby did not although she worked hard for it, winning Team Snookers and getting a 2nd in Team Gamblers. But her rocky start with a small but lethal mistake in Saturday's Team Standard put her team behind, and even though the subsequent wins helped get their points up, a very lethal mistake by her teammate put them out of the running in the Oh so important for points Team Relay Race. It happens! But Ruby did get a 3rd in the Steeplechase first round, had a fairly slow 2nd round but still got a 5th overall, and something in the Grand Prix. I think a 4th.

Otterpop was a champ! She made small errors here and there, and so did her team mate dogs named Sizzle and Tag, but nothing drastic enough to cost them the hard to get Q. The only thing that made me irritated but also was equally funny was when she stopped in the corner of the ring, during the Grand Prix, that was right next to a hamburger stand. Just stopped running, put her nose in the air, and started sleepwalk following the scent of frying burgers towards the hamburger stand. On her tiptoes. Following her nose. It was like straight out of a dog cartoon except it was happening during the Grand Prix. Where you should be running really, really fast. Everyone was laughing. I just yelled at her and she popped back into gear. It cost us some time, but she still came in 4th. She did a similar cartoon sleepwalking dog thing for some people eating french fries outside the ring during her Steeplechase which also cost her enough time to not make it to the finals. So we had a little junk food issue but that was about it.

Ruby had slow weave poles. They started great and got slower and more pathetic as the weekend went on, costing her time and possible wins in other classes. I don't know what to do about this and it is a weird problem to fix. Because on Saturday morning they were fast, and by the afternoon they are slow. Steeplechase finals had 2 sets of weave poles. 2 times to be slow on otherwise fast runs, costing a lot of seconds. I think her time was 10 seconds slower than the winning time. Grand Prix. Slow weave poles. This makes me want to cry. I guess there are a lot worse things to cry about. Like it is not global warming here. But still. We want to be rockstars of dog agility and instead, we are just sort of plain. I hate to be plain.

So all in all, it was actually very fun and lots of good runs and lots of thing to work on too. Rubyweavepoles. Otterpophamburger. No mean people there the whole time! Christmas music! Wine drinking in a motorhome! Starbucks within 1 mile of Motel 6! No traffic! Two whole days of a dog show! No rain! I learned what it felt like to make a mistake and be shamed with an Elimination. Shameful and horrible. A lesson to use somewhere in life. Thanks dog agility!