Gustavo ran great, a short story accompanied by dogs that look possessed on the dogwalk which sort of has something to do with bathroom mirrors.

Photo credit: Lisa P. via facebook. Thanks Lisa!


It was just so easy. He only runs jumpers now. And pairs seems to be ok with him as well. I am sure there will be horrible meltdowns again, but all he has to do in jumpers is follow me around. I run as fast as I can and so does he and he turns when I show him where. Only Jumpers is what Gustavo does now. It's his thing.


Zuma's time smoked him today though and she won. It's not easy to run faster than Zuma. Although it looks like she may have been naughty elsewhere. Maybe with her dogwalk? Wendy has on her very cross face here.


Here's a small dog visiting from Oregon, Barbara's new little dog Shine. I am always happy when people start bringing new little dogs up through the levels in USDAA. We need more little dogs competing!


Like Arlene's hairy corgi, Ben. Arlene's other little dog, Sparkle, is about half the size of Otterpop and rarely misses a gamble. We have some amazing small dog gamblers around here. Small fast kick yer ass!

Now I will present some pictures of dogs on the dogwalk that look a bit posessed. Hopefully they will distract somewhat from the horrors of what is to unfold about Otterpop. Because who doesn't like a good posessed dog picture?


Otterpop got the gamble today, but had such a weird and horrible shut down in the opening that she didn't get enough points to qualify. This is a very bad thing. She had a ok startline, even barked at me, and off she went into a tunnel. This is her favorite way to start. And out she came and into the poles. Poles and tables are her other Things. She loves doing poles and flies through and likes it when I run far away fast while she's in there. This time though, she slammed on her brakes and just stopped halfway through. Just stopped in the poles.

This was a bad thing.


Standard was even worse, after a stressed out, slow start, she nearly refused a tunnel, then came out and just stood there for a while, standing still on the course. While I am waiting for her at the table. Her other favorite thing. (Although, weird fact, after getting on the table and getting off, she ran the rest of this course including this very dogwalk all the dogs looked totally possessed on just super).


These were probably two of the worst shutdowns she's ever had. I didn't run her any more after that. It's not agility when that happens. Seeing this happen to your dog is like you walked into the bathroom at night, looked in the mirror, and your hair is crawling in really big spiders. And your tooth is gone again.

Because you never, ever look in the bathroom mirror at night. Ghouls. Machetes. Spiders. Teeth.


I KNOW, RIGHT? That bad.


I was happy that one of my friends, who has a young dog with trial stress who has been shutting down, had great successes by trying some of the things I've tried over the years with Otterpop. I have A LOT of things I've tried for this. I think Otterpop's issues have become so deeply ingrained that I have given up looking for new things to try. The Dr. Jekyl Stepford personality that comes out of her is something that is completely unique to agility trials. Everything else in her life is done at full speed, loud mouthed gusto, and it's what makes agility so much fun with her. The increasingly sadder dog show Otterpop, a total bummer.


Photo credit: Lisa P. via facebook. Thanks Lisa!

We are inching that much closer to her sitting the whole thing out.