Stick with the Plan.

The plan was, just run several obstacles for every run at the next dog show with Gustavo, and run out and reward. This was a good plan, better than quitting dog shows forever starting now. Nancy has a lot of good plans.

Gustavo went along with it. I won't say he looked amazing. He had a look on his face that reminded me of a haggard desert explorer who's camel just took off in the wrong direction when the mote with pool is still miles away across the sand. Usually he looks like a perky little fellow, so haggard and camel-less desert explorer isn't quite right. Curled in a ball in the back of his crate all day isn't right for him either. So this plan doesn't fix all.

But in 5 of his 6 runs, the shorty course worked. Had his pairs partner not E'ed, pairs would have been a Q. 10 things was a good way to end the day. 3 obstacles of Steeplechase fried him, but we were late to the dreaded spooky ring, and not prepared, poor guy. No more late to the ring for Gustavo. His standard shorty course included a very nice table, so double birds smacked down with one desert rock for that. A couple nice dogwalks.

A work in progress. We've been down this road before, back to square one, patience of a saint and all of that. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Otterpop was Otterpop. Some fast runs, some really shitty ones. I pulled her out of Steeplechase for looking even more haggard than Gustavo. I think her days of Steeplechase and Jumpers are done. I think she may have earned some silver things in gamblers and standard, I'll have to find my spreadsheet (aka piles of post-its with Q dates on them) and count them up. Otterpop drags me to the ring, barking and cracking me up with her tricks, tells me she's ready to do fast running, throws down a sort of blah run, then drags me back to the car to go get a frisbee. Otterpop messes with my mind.

Some of my best agility pals all flew on airplanes to Minnesota for the World Team Tryouts this weekend. They are all doing great and we sure do hope they all make the team! I am thinking of them zooming around the skull crusher courses on fake grass, the kind of courses that Otterpop loves, while me and Gustavo are all jump-jump-tunnel-poles-jump-out to toss a ring on his head tomorrow. This is just how it goes.