"Do you know the
butterfly feelings in the pit of your stomach? Most people say its from being nervous,
some say its from pressure, but I digress. On the fateful January morning my
“butterflies” were not from pressure, or nervousness, but from excitement. It
was finally happening, we were finally going. I have to admit I had very high
hopes for Willow and I. I wanted to get up there and wow the judges. Which was
quite the opposite of what happened.
Friday, Mom pulled me out of
math class for the drive down. Suitcases, bags, and a small cooler littered the
backseat. Dog in tow we left. After a few stops and a couple hours on the road
we arrived at the Red Roof Motel. That evening we met up with Erica, and Abby.
Let me back up Erica is my trainer with two sweet golden retrievers and Abby is
a fellow trainer with the cutest pug in the world, Tsunami.
We have one other person in our class, Julie who was going to come down
on Saturday with her big lovable black lab Duncan.
We said goodnight and
retired to our rooms. Excitement bubbled up in me again.
To be truthful that night
was one of the worst night of my life. The walls were very thin so Willow was
getting up ever so often to bark at the late night party people, and when she
was settled she was a complete bed hog! Never the less we got up in the morning
and continued our pursuit of a perfect trial.
Entering the building were
the trial was taking place was an amazing feat itself, it was packed like bees
in a hive. Navigation was nearly impossible. Our first step was to measure.
This was Willow's first trial so we need a judges measurement to preform. Wilow
hated the feel of something hitting her back so I thought this part would be an
astronomical disaster, but it was the exact opposite. The judge was nice and
Willow was calm, a first!
We had entered three
sections, Novice Fast, Novice Standard, and Novice Jumpers. We had planned to
do fast just as a warm up and weren't that worried about it. Fast was a pretty
simple course, but it had it's kinks.
We could do this no big deal. Boy was I
wrong. First thing was to get Willow focused on me. She was very intent on the
buffalo bits until it was almost our turn. Then when I tried to get her
attention nothing. Uh oh. We started out got one, two jumps, then......... dang
it lost her. She ran up the A-Frame, one wrong course, jumped on the judge,
automatic fail. The whistle blew and we were off. One down three to go, our
next step was standard.
Standard was around the same
as fast, jumping on the judge, wrong courses, and of course losing focus. I
think that was our major problem was me losing her focus.
Jumpers course was similar,
but better. We started out good and then I lost her again, but the great part
was I got her back and finished with a flash!
In the end it was a
successful I found out what makes her tick, had a good time, and most of all
experience what it was to compete in a official trial for the first time and in
the end it didn't really matter what the scores were, but that it was the
experience and the excitement of it all that really stuck with me. I guess
butterflies aren't always what they seem."
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