What a weekend it has been...
First of all, before anything else, I would like to give a quick update on the victims of the accident. They are all doing well, obviously in pain and there will be a long road to recovery, but they are all out of the woods. The support from the dog community has been AMAZING. A fund going to assist in medical bills, some of the clubs that hosted the shows this weekend have donated ALL their profit towards expenses and amazing anonymous donors, offering to cover VAST medical costs in private hospitals with the best specialists available. So much support that it even makes ME sound soppy...
So then I have to move on to my agility weekend. I feel like a big fat horrible arse atm... I owe Spaz the biggest apology in the world. Let's put it this way, by Saturday eve I was in a state, I was doubting him and I was doubting myself A LOT...I was wondering WHAT THE HELL my business in the sport was. I was feeling like a hypocrite for lecturing others on their ways... I was in a deep dark hole with no little beam of light. On Sunday I decided to just have fun and couldn't care less about my end result and even after all that mental lecturing I was disappointed with the day. I drove back to Jo'burg in one hell of a funk...
So tonight I sat down with all the videos I took... I actually didn't even WANT to look at them. Guess what I discovered... we DIDN'T have a crap weekend. Nope, we really didn't. Chaos gave me his heart and soul (as always) and yes, I DID let him down in a few rounds, but not as badly as I thought. JackASS... And the worst part is, is that it is all my idiotic doing... I sat down with myself long before this weekend and said that I didn't expect anything from this weekend... reason being, that we were competing over the equipment that will be used for SA Champs in the same province. I WANTED to proof my training (which I did) and my contacts (which I did) and my poles (which I never needed to because Spaz was awesome), I WANTED to try some challenging handling (which I did)... the only thing that I didn't want to do is let Chaos down... WHICH I DID. But all in all we actually had a GOOD weekend. And I looked at a lot of the dogs we will be competing against for a spot on the team and they made worse mistakes on some rounds... Not that THAT part matters at all. I generally don't give a crap what anyone else does in comparison to me when it comes to agility... I mean of course I support my friends in THEIR agility, they just have nothing to do with MY agility. Thing is that mistakes happen in agility, it is a VERY HARD and VERY unforgiving sport. The best dogs have a bad weekend and there is such a fine line between a brilliant round and a big fat E.
My point is that the weekend is EXACTLY what I wanted it to be, so why didn't I keep a level head? Erm, sorry cannot answer that one. Guess it is just the Hyde side of me that was coming out this weekend while Jekyll took a snooze. But me and him had a long chat today, he accepted my apology for all the bitching and moaning this weekend and we are all good.
Here is the video of this weekend, I didn't edit anything out, gave you all that I got :) I want to make another one of all the other dogs too this weekend... just to give you an idea.
I had SUCH good training with Chaos today, so I am back to being positive. And I just have to mention that I had the most amazing training with the Voltenstein this afternoon, videos to follow later in the week. What an awesome little boy he is.
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteI;ve been reading your blog for a while and have really been enjoying it ... so I guess this is THANKS from a Canadian ... a long way away :)
So sorry to hear about the accident and so glad that everyone is OKAY!
What prompted me to write today was your comment about setting expectations. It made me chuckle because I had a very eye opening experience around the same concept this weekend. This weekend was the first trial for my little two year old terv (yes little, just 22"). Anyway, he was really ready for one jumper's run + one snooker run .... but ... new locations have been the mill stone around his tervy neck :) SO, I knew I needed to start trialling at a little safe trial but honestly, I was scared SHITLESS that he would decide he couldn't work, which is the most heart breaking thing ever for me so I set an expectation of just having fun and accepting what he could offer as a baseline. We will not trial again for about six weeks.
Well, Saturday was a horrid day weatherwise. I worked my pre-run plan and off we went to run, Q'd - second place, not a lightening fast time ... but respectable! I didn't let anyone tape it because I was too worried about it - DUH, press delete if you need to Catherine :)
Sunday was snooker, this time taped it, clean once again, would have Q'd but opps I left his collar on by mistake. Now, what have I done with the video??? Nit picked my numerous handling ERRORS! And fretted about speed. Original "expectation" go in the ring with happy boy and accept anything - yeah, where the heck did that go? We are a silly bunch.
Heard this today and think it will help me: accept, adapt, achieve
Cheers,
Catherine Thomas
Thanks for the comment Catherine and for reading my blog of course! Congratulations on two good rounds. I guess the huge barrier between training and trialling is a universal one and one of the hardest to overcome. Probably in my case because I tend to over-analise everything. Imagine how well we would do if WE (as handlers) could get over all our issues. Oh well try and try again.
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