10. What’s the matter with Otterpop?
9. What’s the matter with Gustavo?
8. Maybe you should be thinking about getting a puppy?
7. Maybe you should try being meaner to your dogs sometimes?
6. Maybe Rob would let you run Wings?
5. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!*
4. Your necklace is so cute!**
3. Sometimes it’s good for us to be humbled.
2. Oh MY.
1.
1.
1. Actually, I can’t bear to go on. None of us had a good day. I am frustrated. The dogs are fully over it and running around the house like normal. Like the good and perfect dogs they are. Except in dog shows. Where them and me, no matter how hard we practice, fall into old bad habits, pick up new bad habits, and generally suck.
Maybe Team Small Dog goes on hiatus after this. I have no idea. I can probably read a bunch of inspirational quotes and cowgirl up and go back, once again, to doing a million teeter totters with Gustavo and maybe I can find Otterpop a new psychic that can tell us why she wants to stare at judges and turn off her excited, frenzied barking the second she moves on to the startline. Maybe if you clap 3 times and whistle hard I’llI crawl out from under my table. Maybe not.
I have been trying so hard to get good at this, I thought I was getting good at this. But it would seem, that I’m not getting good at this.
*This happened as I was dragging Gustavo out from under the table in Standard where he got stuck in an On the table-Under the table-On the table-Under the table-On the table-Under the table-And so on-Vortex, and resulted in my wailing at all the laughers, including the judge, as I fled from the ring with poor Gustavo in my arms, “Don’t LAUGH at us!!!”
**If you haven’t seen my friend Wendy’s necklaces yet, look for her at a trial near you. Super cute.
the laws of physics do not always apply to dog agility (and dogs in general.) as in every action has an equal and opposite reaction. this time you got the opposite reaction. hard work= bad performance. but, since the laws of physics are finite, and the laws of dog agility are not, next time, hard work = totally kicking butt! at least the crowd reaction was out in the open. when you kick butt, they are thinking quietly about how much they wish you and your dogs would give up dog agility and stay home and not kick their butts.
cowgirl up and seize your championness! or not..
your team will love you no matter what.
valpig
Oh, Laura,
So sorry things went badly. Don't give up; you and the team are good at agility; it just doesn't always show.
I know all about the walk of shame.
Carol
Don't for one second think you're not good at this!! The problem you're experiencing is a classic one – great at class & practice, then you barely recognize your dog at a trial – so many of us have experienced the same thing! Something was going on at the trial that unnerved Otterpop and Gustavo!
Hang in there!
Beth & Lexi
Laura Hartwick! Stop it! I, personally, witness your EXCELLENT, CONSISTENT, PATIENT, handling week after week, and ever since Nationals you have made me ashamed at how much better and better you are getting, while I merely inch forward, disobeying rules of good handling willy-nilly, the consequences of which will surely bite me in the ass with my new dog, to extreme embarrassment at which time you will become my trainer to make me obey the rules, finally.
That your 3 Formally Feral dogs don't particularly enjoy being in the middle of 2- and 3-ring circuses of dog-agility public-ness being stared at by dog catchers [judges], yet STILL get out there and run with you, AT ALL is a minor miracle each time.
We all feel this, sometimes more often than not!
But do you love it? And does it give you the BEST excuse to just hang out all day with the dogs you love?
Yes, Yes it does.
DEEP Breaths, doggy kisses and maybe a frosty beverage will turn those bummed feelings around.
Cheers.
RRR
Oh dear, that does not sound fun at all. I draw pictures when agility feels like that, takes the sting out, somehow.
I feel a DON'T LAUGH AT US T-SHIRT coming on…
(FYI: I would wear it day and night)
OMG. Brilliant! All agility people would buy it! Actually, maybe a headband?
I was so happy reading your blog this morning! I want to become your official groupie! I went to a seminar yesterday where my best achievement was not bursting into tears. But my dog is awesome.
Branding Moment:
Dog Agility: the Sport of UnChampions!
I wonder if Dr. Drew could help me? It seems to be a vicious cycle, trying to get better then not getting better so then trying to get better except then not getting better so then trying to get better, and so on and so forth. I don't trust Oprah's advice anymore. I think this is a job for Dr. Drew.
hang in there – I am quite sure there were good moments that escaped your keyboard as you typed this post ..
Sounds like a perfectly awful day. Sorry to hear it.
I used to train a dog with issues. We did well in the ring but she wasn't keen on other dogs. More than once I went home and cried and asked myself why I was doing it. That dog is an old lady now and I miss that part of our relationship so much.
I have two little bad pound puppies that I'm too chicken to try with.
You are living my dream.
Hope you hang in there.
Well, I almost wasn't there at all on Sunday because Saturday I was ready to hand in my agility membership cards and just go hiking every weekend instead. I survived the whole weekend, though. Barely. Thank goodness sunday was marginally better for me. Maybe it's just that you have one day on the weekend, so if that one day happens to be bad (and I don't think all of yours are, no matter how it feels), you don't have a 2nd day to hopefully make it all change. Of course, one also needs, like, a job to pay for the entry fees to those bitterly disappointing trial days. There will be better agility days ahead for you and TSD, I'm convinced.
Oh TSD, I am sorry. Mainly because I feel your pain. I haven't yet experienced the laughing at trials, but I am sure thats only because I havent caught anyone in the act, not because it hasnt happened.
I was just having a conversation at a trial this weekend about how agility is probably the most difficult sport (or almost anything really) that I have ever done. One friend made me laugh when she said agility showed her patience she never knew she had. I laughed because it was so true.
We keep doing it because there are the occasional parts that are so good. And without the bad parts, the good parts arent so delicious. Keep at it.
I would proudly wear a Don't Laugh shirt. I am sure it would come in handy for me and my team.
Most of the time, I am all about trying to laugh it off myself and movie on. But Gustavo's vortexes, or Otterpop barking at a judge just make me want to crawl in a hole and die.
I guess today I'm glad he only went in the vortex once, and never entered the tunnel/weave pole vortex. And Otterpop used her impulse control to move along, and most of her a-frames became normal a-frames and not sniper platforms.
So today we're picking it back up and embracing our UnChampion status and off we go, bright and early, if the rain stays away, to go do some teeter totters and tables on the way to work.
TSD You Rock!! and I will buy a t-shirt so get crackin on that in your spare time.
We had mud before you get to the dirt so carry your dog in dirt night last night and I could not, no matter how hard I tried, do a post turn. It resulted in laughter. Like you, I will get over it mostly because it was kinda funny.
So, embrace the laughter and take some time off if you need to, but never give up. Sometimes a moment of rest allows all that you've learned to coalesce into totally rad skillz.
xoxo