Post date: Jan 18, 2010 11:18:30 PM
Going into the Border Terrier trial in Santa Rosa this weekend, we needed less than 50 points to finish our MACH (we already had all our double Qs). So a few weeks ago, I checked Trevor's record on the AKC site to make sure their records matched my records. To my astonishment, I found that they thought he had 4 MORE points than I thought he had. Impossible!
I had to get to the bottom of it, so I ordered Trevor's full competition report from the AKC. I quickly found the discrepancy. It was from a trial we went to back in October that was one of our worst trials of the year. Somehow, we had gotten 4 more points on one of our runs than I thought.
Fast forward to this weekend. It was a 3-day trial, and I was hoping to finish. But you never know. Our next trial isn't until February, and I was feeling the pressure. I hadn't had a normal night's sleep in a week. "We can do it" affirmations ring pretty hollow when you're staring up at the ceiling at 3 a.m.
The first day we double-Qed, which was a big confidence boost. But I was still a nervous wreck, and I felt like we had barely squeaked by in our runs--I didn't feel like we were "in the zone." I didn't have high expectations going into the second day of the trial. That morning, I took Trevor out for a quick potty break before his first run. It had been raining, and the field was a swamp. Before I knew it, Trevor lunged forward and pulled me on my butt in a pool of muddy water. When I stood up, my jeans were streaked with mud from the waist down. I started laughing. That's when I knew we were going to finish that day, with me looking like a derelict in my MACH video. It was a sign from the cosmos. Sometimes you can practically hear the theme music from "This is Your Life" playing in the background.
We went inside and had a good Standard run. Now we just needed 8 points to finish. Could we do it? We crossed the finish line on jumpers, and... YES! We had gotten exactly 8 points. So Trevor finished his MACH with 750 points on the nose. What are the odds?
Trevor started in AKC agility on a Dan Butcher Novice JWW course in October 2008. So it was a nice symmetry that he finished his MACH on another Dan Butcher JWW course, especially since Dan is one of our favorite judges.
Once we had that MACH thing out of the way (ahem!), I could finally relax, and the last day of the trial was our best. We already have the 20 QQs we need for our MACH 2, so now our goal is to take more chances and push our agility performance. Here is a great blog post by Susan Garrett on getting outside of your comfort zone. This is my inspirational reading for 2010.