By Imagineer Australian Shepherds
I was reading on Facebook and came across this piece as it was shared from a friend. It came at a very good time in my life with Kaiden – and quite frankly – hit home. It is a beautiful and meaningful writing! It goes as so:
“A couple of weeks ago I was at a trial where the general atmosphere was… tense. My dog and I weren’t having a great weekend, but apparently neither were a lot of other people. That not-so-good weekend for us was followed by another one. It wasn’t that the wheels had totally fallen off. The synchronicity from a month earlier just wasn’t there.
Over that second three-day weekend, my spirits gradually spiraled downward. I cried on the way home. Two weekends, no green ribbons, and certainly no MACH points. How were we ever going to get there? Certainly not this way. My dog wasn’t young. She wasn’t BC fast, either. We got what we got on accuracy and reliability and lately we hadn’t had either of those.
After my meltdown, I started to think about what all that sadness was telling me. Mostly, that this was really important. To me. Not the dog. She was trying. We weren’t having train wrecks. Just a series of near misses. She was just happy to be my partner and doing something we both loved.
The first thing I did when I dusted my pride off was make her a chiropractic appointment. I’ve learned the hard way to rule out physical causes when the dog starts dropping bars or popping out of weave poles one too many times. Sure enough, her one elbow and shoulder were torqued, same as last year. We’ve been trialing steadily for over a year and she’s my running buddy. I need regular bodywork of my own, so it only figures she might, too.
Also, I wasn’t being wholly present during our runs. I’d become sooo concerned with comparing myself to other handlers that I was making mistakes. I’d done that before. Felt I didn’t belong. Wasn’t as good. Didn’t have as many tools in my toolbox and my dog was too Velcro. I was putting a ton of pressure on myself and my dog.
But here’s the thing I apparently have to keep learning over and over and over. I am not anyone else. I am me. And I have the dog I have. Our journey is uniquely our own. I should do what works for my dog, given all that.
At the next trial, I walked the course and paid no attention to everyone else. I simply focused on what had worked for us in the past. As I stepped to the line, I told myself *only* this run mattered. If for some reason tomorrow came and we could no longer do this, I was going to make this one run the best show of our teamwork that I could. I was going to run like there was no one there to judge and nothing mattered more than just doing this together.
I kept it calm. I didn’t rush to make time. I played it safe on the tricky parts. And she was right there where she should be, every time. We were connected. It felt like we’d been doing this in exactly this way forever. A few obstacles from the end of our runs, I didn’t worry about if we’d make it to the end clean. I was clear about commands. I met her where she is with her abilities—I let her shine where she is strong and supported her where she needed help. She nailed her weaves every single time and didn’t drop a single bar.
It was the most Zen, in-the-moment day I can ever remember with her. We got our first QQ that day (#14) after a long dry spell that had lasted months. Despair turned to absolute joy.
My point is this: If you get too focused on the legs, the points, the titles, or what others might think of you and your dog, you can easily lose sight of why you started doing this in the first place. For fun. Because your dog loves it. Because you’ve made friends doing this. And because there are worse things you could do with your time and money.
So the next time it feels like you’re stuck in a rut and can’t get a Q even if the course is only three jumps in a straight line, let it go. Calm down. Just be in the moment. It’ll come to you when you let go of needing so badly to have it.
Love what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with. After all, that’s what your dog does.”
The Road Traveled with my Companions 
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