USDAA weekend before the Regionals with yer pals Otterpop and Gustavo.

Jumpers

One thing about Gustavo is, most of the time in his life, he has so much Joy in him the extra oozes out his follicles, and even if he is having some Sad, you might think he is having some Joy. It might have to do with his missing teeth or his ear hair or his jittery way of being. Or his fluffy tail. An extravaganza of Joy to the World tail, waving around up there almost the size of his whole body.

Otterpop isn't like this. Otterpop only ran Gamblers this weekend. Otterpop was all JOY to get out of the crate and JOY to get down to the ring and JOY when the gamble buzzer went off to knock out her gambles. Her bashed up cattle dog tail wags hard and slaps you in the ankle. GODDAMN JOY. Except she was all Eff This Shit in her openings and ran like I was bludgeoning her. If I showed you a video of this, you would be all, evil dog abusing lady has just beaten the crap out of that dog with a metal spike badger cage and expects it to run through some plastic slalom poles now.

The only time in her life Otterpop looks like this is in the dog show ring and maybe if you yell at her for climbing into the horse shoer's truck and eating his sandwich.

Oh wait. She is all, "HA HA HA JOY AND NOW I'M EATING HIS PUDDING," when you yell at her. So really, it's only in the dog show ring but not during the gamble she acts like that. The only time in her whole life Otterpop is sad is during a dog show. So her openings sucked and what do I do with Otterpop? My agility superstar who hates the dog show ring more than any, any, anything.

MC Jumpers

There's no video of Otterpop having the sadfullness, or shooting off with Joy when the buzzer goes off and into her gamble sequence thing of beauty. It is too heartbreaking and gutwrenching to see the rest of it. She practically walked thru some weave poles. Do you know what an crafty, high speed weave pole artist Otterpop is? Knife stabbed thru my heart, Otterpop.

Afterwards, she's all, HA HA HA HA HA FRISBEEEE!!!!

Otterpop did not win gamblers. Not even close.

Standard

Gustavo had a bad time with teeter totters this weekend. As in, running away into tunnels to avoid them. Loads of tunnels. Tunnels have Joy and dog show teetertotterss do not. Although, teeters not at dog shows have Joy. Dogs are weird. He did one good teeter in Grand Prix because I slammed on his brakes before he could run away into the nearest tunnel, had him do a little trick, and his mind went, Oh! Teeter! Hola! Feliz Navidad! Joy! Reboot.

Maybe this will work next weekend at the Regional. Maybe not. It worked to give us a table where sometimes he selects the tunnel option over laying down on the table, also.

All his jumpers runs were rad. Snookers and Gamblers, rad. He was a good listener all weekend, except during Steeplechase, and ran fast and turned. Steeplechase I will use the excellent training tactic of let's forget all about that one. He had some problems with his poles. When he has problems, I don't always understand why and I shrug. Same as if you ask me a question about the San Francisco 49ers or what exactly has happened in Syria. When I shrug I let out some breath. It's like a little snort. There is a name for this in yoga. During Gentle Yoga for decrepit old people at the gym we do this while we're laying around on the floor, listening to the puffy chest weight room guys yuck it up and slam loud things right next to our ears.

Breathing out the clueless air and making some room for desert.