The night before the last day of the Regionals, I had this horrible dream about my car tires getting shot out in post apocalyptic downtown San Jose and my phone almost being hijacked by Russian phone hijackers then having to run Otterpop in some big agility event on this grunge distressed junkyard zombie agility course where I couldn't figure out the course. I guess I need to get a grip.
Otterpop and Hobbes both ran in the big Grand Prix finals. I was nervous. I ran Hobbes first and I told him before we went that he needed to help me out on the tricky course. He's such a good boy. He had a great run and that 4th place was a close one. I was very proud of him.
Otterpop ran next, I was so proud of her. She decided that she could let everyone see what an awesome Otterpop she can be, and she tried so hard and ran so fast! In fact, so fast that she blew by one of the finish line jumps, and I had to loop back and get it-I think it almost cost us the win. Our SoCal agility pals Whitney and her corgi Cooper won though, so that was ok. Otterpop ended up in 4th place and I have no complaints other than, just wait til next time Whitney!
It's pretty fun to run in the finals. I found out today that EVERYBODY is nervous. Not just me. All my friends made sure not to look when I ran Otterpop, I think. They SAID they weren't looking. But they did cheer us on. That sure helps you run nice and fast.
Otterpop was cranky in the morning, but I think won her Standard and Jumpers. I guess she didn't want to get up so early just because I jolted out of bed all freaked out about potential cannibals shooting out my tires and having to run her on a course made of weird old wood crap and jagged metal structures. I wonder if they had any agility at Burning Man? Maybe I'm channeling something from there. Like I'm turning into a satellite dish for stressful brain waves? I dunno. This was not useful.
We were VERY proud of our friend Mary and her dog Ariel. They ended up 4th in the 22" Grand Prix after the very best run they've ever had. I guess it's weird to be proud of 4ths, you're not exactly a winner but a placer. But I think that Mary and I were really happy to be 4ths. I know that I tried my very best. I still might have made an error that cost me a win, but doesn't it seem like someday I might outgrow this problem? Like I'm outgrowing my pants? Maybe my head will swell up so big I'll outgrow my hats, too. Now I'm all confused. I guess growing is good, unless the problem is growing in the stomach and thigh area. All other growing, bring it on.
Gustavo has some things to outgrow. Starting with being such a sensitive little guy. 3 days of trialing was WAY too much for him and he regressed to practically back in the womb. I think you can pay a lot to therapists to help you do this for real. Gustavo just needed a full slate of runs and 3 days in an xpen at a dog show. He ended the day with a nice jumpers run, but I think he was just barely holding it together. Startlines, just raw nerves and he kept looking for zombies behind him. By the end of the trial, he couldn't even function normally. On Monday morning, in his Standard run, he felt so freaked out off the startline I wasn't sure what was going to happen. He made it halfway through the course, with a fabulous dogwalk contact curiously enough, and definitely nice and speedy, then hit the table and acted like it was electrocuting him. He laid down, he leaped off and climbed under. Then back up and down then back off and under and got stuck in THAT weirdo endless loop vortex for a while. It was sort of scarey. Like he was TRYING to get his life back on track and lay down on the stupid table but his brain was exploding before my eyes. I didn't even attempt a tight turn into the poles coming soon after, I instead politely excused ourselves to the judge and fled.
Aside from me and Gustavo's little nightmares, it was a fun day. Gustavo was very gratetful for the frisbee portion of the day. Ruby liked the treats being passed out. Lots of our agility pals had a good day - Ashley and Luka won the 16" Grand Prix, JD and Tantrum won the 12", Nancy and Ace won the 22" and Channan and Icon won the 26" with Rob and Wings coming in 2nd. I pretty much missed everybody else in the Performance Grand Prix because I took the dogs down to the field for a frisbee game after Otterpop ran. Sorry about that, Performance Pals! We packed up all the stuff, emptied the garbage cans one final time, then were able to have a relaxing time waiting in the backyard for Gary to come home from work to let us in the house since I have this total ISSUE with my keys. Does that happen to the Grand Prix winners? I am going to guess, not.
Someday. Someday.
4 comments:
Congratulations on your fabulous run in the finals! And if it makes you feel any better, I misplaced my keys yesterday morning and still can't figure out where the $^#% I put them. Fortunately I was already home at the time.
Can you let me know where you find your keys because I think my keys might be in the same place? We have a big key problem.
Having had some accidents with keys in the past, now I always have a spare key in a hidden spot on my property somewhere. Always. I think every yard has a list of places a mile long where no one would ever get around to looking for a key if they were trying to break in. This has been emphasized by all the Geocaches that I have found in public locations where thousands of people walk by every day and they're almost in plain sight but no one notices. And once I went to a park where I knew there were literally hundreds of geocaches but didn't know where they were exactly and never found one even though I tried to.
Hi Laura. You and Otterpop looked great in the PSG finals! Yes, let's look forward to next year :) So sorry to hear about your lost keys. I don't worry about that because I have no keys to the house. NO kidding. Okay - everyone now knows they can burglarize my house at any time. Just watch out for the killer Corgi that is guarding the ranch!
Whitney and Cooper
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