Great Dogs, Great Weekend

We had such a good time this weekend despite the fact that we did not sleep well. Our usual Elk Grove hotel is such a pain in the ass. Always something wrong at that place. No towels, remote doesn’t work, no dishes, etc. I have actually had rooms with someone else’s underwear hanging over the shower rod and, one time, a third of a Pringle left on the bathroom floor. One of my agility pals joked that the Pringle was Extended Stays version of a mint on your pillow. “They just want you to feel welcome.” HAHA!

This time – no functioning heat/AC unit. Like a sweat box in there. Until about 3am, then a freezer. Dogs rolled into tiny little balls of chilly. Makes them look so small on that king bed.

Bella was a frickin’ champ this weekend. Even when she wasn’t, she was. 11 out of 12 Q’s. Some of those runs were not pretty. Barely held together with lots of “Ah, no, over here!” I think that’s why I enjoy the games so much. We can do our own thing. Have our own fun. No worries. Just RUN! And run we did. She is just so full of Try. My favorite part of all our runs is the end. Bella is not a barker, but at the end of a run she always runs back to me and gives me one bark. I think she’s giving me shit for beating me to the end. It’s very cute. Yes, Bella, you win.

And Kate? Bestest Auxiliary Dog ever. She is just so easy-peesy to have along. Gets to play ball, go for walks, have people feed her. Perfect weekend for her, too. She is gracious in her support role.

I guess it’s part of not being a competitive person, but I do get more satisfaction – feel more pride – not when someone compliments us on a run, but when people compliment my dogs out of the ring. I love to hear people say that they like being set up next to us because the girls are so good. Much more satisfying then “nice weaves.” :-)

And on our C-ATE journey… oi… I’m so tired of thinking about this. It’s dumb that I’m feeling any sort of stress or pressure because, personally, I don’t think titles mean anything, at least not anything beyond your personal journey with that particular dog.

What does have meaning to me are LISTS.

Love them.

The smart people at work have figured this out. Need something done in a ridiculously short period of time? Make me a list. Even better if you put little boxes on there I can check off as I go. I hate unchecked boxes hanging over my head!

In CPE, the C-ATCH is sort of the sprint and the C-ATE is the marathon. Once we got the C-ATCH out of the way I had no list to worry about. No boxes to fill in. 5000 points is a lot of points and you end up with a ton of time to not even think about that shit. Now? Back to counting and filling in and checking off. I also have a small staff of agility accountants that are counting and checking, too.

  You know, in case we get audited.

Hopefully it’ll be over next weekend. Then back to our regular running without counting. No more folks asking, “So, what are we down to?”

Yes, “we,” it takes a village, and all.