A couple weeks ago, we talked about how sad we were to turn back in our beautiful trophy for the Longs Peak Dog Training Club (LPDTC) Agility team of the year. Because we didn’t MACH this year, we totally thought we were out of contention. It was sad but we were excited to see which one of our friends would get their name on the coveted “Splash” trophy!
Tonight was the evening of the banquet. Jenny had it all planned out. LPDTC meetings are always at 7:00 in Ft. Collins. That meant Jenny would need to skip her agility class, but could instead go with Marc and Halo to their 2×2 class and then we could go straight to the banquet.
Everything was going according to plan, even made it to Marc/Halo’s class early. About halfway through class (6:30) Jenny pulls up her LPDTC email to get directions to the restaurant. Banquet starts at 5:00!!!!! OOPS. So, as soon as Marc’s class was ramping down Jenny started packing up and we made a quick drive to Fort Collins even quicker.
We snuck into the banquet room just as they were wrapping up individual titles for the year. About two seconds after we sat down they announced all the titles Indy, Karma, and Halo earned in 2013 and gave us our plaque and tiles. It was pretty exciting to get them all and physically hold/see all our hard work again. Also, since this is a performance club, we got some oohs and ahhs from the crowd for finishing Halo’s CH and GCH in one year!
Prepared to sit back and just enjoy cheering on our friends, Jenny was shocked to stand up and receive two awards. The first:
HIGH SCORING NOVICE A AWARD: Our sweet, perfect Indo won this award! After making the decision last weekend to retire Indy from obedience, this was a very special award to receive.
and the second, for the second year in a row:
AGILITY TEAM OF THE YEAR: Yep. Karma and Jenny repeated as the agility team of the year. Jenny thought she was out of contention, but didn’t realize that Master titles were included in the point tabulation, but earning both her MX and MXJ in 2013, she racked up enough of the award points to take home the trophy. This also makes her the first to win the trophy more than once and to win in consecutive years…kinda hoping it’s one of those awards that if you win it three times you get to keep it!! 😉
All jokes aside, the awards above would not be in our hands without the constant support of a few individuals. First our coach, Sarah Stremming (http://www.thecognitivecanine.com/) who has made Jenny the handler she is today in both obedience and agility. While Jenny has never trained with pain compliance measures, Sarah has shown us how positive reinforcement training methods can be easier and quicker than positive punishment, negative reinforcement, and pain compliance. In obedience we have VERY supportive class mates Deb, who has a TON of experience in the venue and a love for the game that is contagious! and Ginger, who understands the nuances of owning and training a Vizsla for obedience 🙂 Thank you so much for all your kind reminders of my cheerleading footwork, velociraptor hands, and for dealing with Indy’s whale sounds.
Our agility group is great, and trying to name everyone is a scary task — hope we don’t miss anyone! Again, thank you Sarah and our training class/team The Honey Badgers — Heather, Dani, Ginger, Jenelle, Chris, Helen, Terry. Thank you for pushing us all year and for always being the first “great run!” comment that we hear when we exit the ring! To our Vizsla agility family – Heather, Ginger, Dale, Katherine, Krista, Kristin, Mary, Steve, Suzanne, and Neeta, thank you!! Everyone is SO supportive of each other in Colorado and Dale and Katherine alone taped more of our runs than we could ever return the favor for. These films helped us improve especially when Karma started getting faster and Jenny’s handling style had to change. When Jenny couldn’t seem to make any front crosses, Krista started making $5 bets…amazingly we made those fronts and didn’t owe her money once! Thank you for the extra push! You have all been a great support this year and we appreciate everything you’ve done, even if your great run comments seem insignificant to you, they make a huge difference to us.
Feeling so blessed and so VERY grateful.