Top Ten things ranked from Really Low Like a Lowrider Except Not Cool to Really Not So Bad Yet Not Surprisingly Still Not Cool from the dog show.

Gratiuitous abandoned house shot. Because I just can't drive to Turlock without pulling over to take an abandoned house tour, ever.

Which means that yes, it was a Sunday drive out to Turlock for a day of USDAA. Perhaps just the highlights will do. Shall we go from high to low or low to high?

Let's start Low. And then, it can only get better.


But first, one more abandonded house. What. You wanted dog photos?

10. Changing Gustavo's adv. snookers plan seconds before he ran, then running face first into a festive #7 flag and letting that little event snowball into a festival of handling mayhem resulting in I don't even remember what, but it really wasn't pretty. I distinctly remember at one point thinking, OMG. I totally look like one of those people you watch in the Starters ring with a pity face, and think, that's just really too bad. And then clap politely when they exit, hoping that inspires them to maybe take a dog agility class or rent a how to video. As I'm running this in the Starters ring. During the time I was busy thinking that, Gustavo was long gone into some contraband off course tunnel and I was just out there flailing and flicking and god knows what.

9. Shrieking, "NO ONE WATCH THIS!" to the crowd as I entered the Masters Gambler ring with Otterpop, after 99% of the handlers aced what seemed to me like kind of a hard gamble. Executing a lovely opening, hitting the gamble right as the buzzer went off, then getting Otterpop stuck halfway through it by shouting Tire! Tunnel! Tire! Get in the Car! That Thing! at her instead of just Turn Chute, which would have probably worked swell. Then thinking, in my already addled brain, must keep body motion pointed towards dog's path, so striking a very nice Statue of Liberty pose well after Otterpop was stuck so we both looked stuck, although it was easy to see which one I was because luckily, mouth wasn't stuck and able to just yell random nouns at poor Otterpop. Everybody watched and I believe I received polite clapping.

8. Hobbes flat out refused to lay down on the table, for the very first time. Abject refusal, would lay down but keep an elbow floating on a wafer thin pillow of air and stare at me with a funny look on his face. I kneeled down, I told him he was so beautiful, woofed at him, tried all my special tricks from the last couple years of our Standard runs together. I guess it means we are now truly family and I should be honored, however, he may never, ever again lay down on the table for me in the show ring.

7. Sending Hobbes out to a special a-frame that was not exactly the course. Actually, not at all in the course.

6. Oh and how about the time I sent Gustavo in the wrong end of a tunnel in Masters Jumpers.

5. Oh wait, how about the time I sent Otterpop in the wrong end of a different tunnel in Masters Jumpers.

4. Or the time I sent Otterpop into the wrong end of another tunnel in Masters Snookers? When she was running fast and had the most opening points of all the little dogs? There was this little theme in my runs today, you know the thing in the story that is usually implied instead of stated explicity according to wikipedia, and the little theme today was, SOMETIMES LAURA REALLY SUCKS AT THIS DOG AGILITY BUSINESS.

3. Not walking or even having time to watch anybody else in Gustavo's Advanced Gamblers. Perhaps due to conflicts but more perhaps due to taking all the dogs on an enjoyable short walk and spacing out that I should walk a course over there. Yet resulting in a lovely Gamble opening, including 2 stellar dogwalk contacts and organized handling and very nice Gambler's Q. I think that was the last one he needed to move to Masters.

2. Otterpop had a nice Standard run in Performance. And her leg seemed comfortable the whole day and she tried hard to win every single run.

1. Gustavo knocked out a beautiful Starters Standard run in the ring where last time he was in there, was full of dead people. This included contacts and a table and poles and a confident teeter totter. It wasn't a Q, he popped out of the last weave pole and there was no way I was taking him back to fix that, I just let him run on and he ran like the wind and like a dog with not a care in the world.

You know, I did end the day with a realization that I just might be one of those pity people out there. This may be a reoccurring theme in my life. But you know, it might be better to try to not even think about that and live with the perhaps unrealistic hope that one day, I stop screwing up out there. So there. If you were one of those polite clapping people as I ran quickly out of that Gambler's ring.