I don’t ever remember feeling like this in and about running agility.

About a year in a half ago (December, 2021), I remember saying boldly to my instructor – “I am going to get to the 2023 AKC Invitationals!” She looked at me and said she though I could and know that it will take a lot of trialing to do it… I responded – I will; it will be fun!

For the invitational, it is all about points. How many seconds under course time equals the number of points you get for that qualifying run. So two things need to happen… you want to qualify (q) and you want to be fast.

Kaiden’s got the “fast” – most of the time! He does that on his own… the second part – qualifying – he needs me as a team mate. There could lie the issue at times!

I am not a speed demon… I am a 67 year old woman with a bad knee. What our team has is… (1) a very smart dog who loves to work distance when possible and seems to know many of my mistakes and adjust to them and (2) a handler who loves to run with her partner! My partner checks in often to try to understand what I want him to do and to go.

Well – on July 1, 2022 – we started our journey to the 2023 AKC Invitational. They take the five top dogs in your breed (The Australian Shepherd) based on points. Last year, the top dog had 3500 points. Two years ago 5300 points. So I figure somewhere between those two numbers was where I would need to fall if I wanted to be the top Aussie (not just in the top 5).

At the beginning, we typically qualify 50% of the Standards and Jumpers. Oh my… so we would have to work twice as hard! We did. Ended up raising our qualifying rate to about 66%. When March, 2023 hit – we started to really click! I was on… he was on. We ended the period (July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023) with 4809 points! In first place with the second place dog some 900 points behind us!

We were the number one Australian Shepherd and we were going to be going to the AKC Invitationals in December, 2023 in Florida!!

Absolutely wonderful – goal met! Then my instructor said – “We need to now work on winning it!” Two issues here… first, I never thought of winning it – just getting there! DUH!! Second – my mind seems like it is “shot.” I am now forgetting the courses and making silly mistakes. It’s like I am out of sync. Am I just tired? I ran every weekend (except Christmas) to achieve the goal… and now since I have – it’s like the air has gone out of my balloon. What to do????

Note: These feelings have nothing to do with agility – really. This feeling has to do with me – mentally. My life has been “set a goal; work towards achieving it; achieve it; and then move on to the next.” My attitude towards reaching a goal is typically – “Ok – that’s nice – now what?” I should learn to celebrate the achievement! I should learn to pause for a moment and smile! In essence – bask in the glory!! HaHa

Kaiden – please wait for me – I promise you – I’ll be back!!