Pinch Me!!!!

Wow, is pretty much all I can say... we work and work to get ourselves and our dogs ready for the National events every year with hopes of a great showing, knowing that there are hundreds of others with the same hopes and dreams, will it be my weekend, will my dog and I be on the same page? Well this year for Maze, Wally, SoBe, and myself the answer was a resounding YES!!
Don't get me wrong, I realize that I have had many moments in the sun and have been fortunate enough to be in all of the various finals at the National events of several venues on numerous occasions, but, there was just something about this year that really made it special.
I don't think I can fully explain how incredible it was to be in all 3 final events with Wally. Wally is one of those super special dogs that we are lucky to have come in to our lives and enhance it in so many ways without it ever really being apparent, Wally ran in Championship tournament events for that last time this year and I guess he wanted to go out with a BANG!! I have to say that our Steeplechase finals run will go down in the history books of my mind as one of the best runs he and I have ever had together! Wally ran quite early in the 22" class and it was impossible to tell whether his time would stand up or not in the field of incredible dogs he was running with, including his own daughter!
As the class went on it became more and more obvious that his time was going to be pretty tough to beat! As the last dog crossed the finish line it dawned on me that we had actually won, it was absolutely a euphoric feeling that I will doubtfully ever experience again, one I will savor for the rest of my life, way to go Wally!
To follow that run with SoBe and experience what my baby girl is now capable of was it's own incredible experience! SoBe went into the finals just .01 second behind the leader and ran her little heart out in the finals! If only I would have timed that silly back cross better, who knows where she would have ended up. I just know that with a refusal we still landed in the 9th position, WOW!!
Well, we were not done yet, time to run Maze in the 26" class, again a spectacular field of dogs! Maze had the run of his life and landed a spot on the podium as well taking 3rd place!! What a night :-)
Even getting to Sat. night was incredible, All 3 pups made Steeplechase Finals, Wally was securely in the GP Finals, SoBe had made it through quarterfinals in GP, and, almost, almost made it into the GP Finals!
The dog agility masters tournament is another huge part of the National Championships and we were having quite a time there as well!
Maze and his fabulous teammates, Sonya Anderson and Jaxon, and, Desiree Snellman and Stinger held it together the 5 runs to ultimately win the 2011 Dog Agility Masters National Champion title! Icing on the cake was winning the 3 dog relay as well.
Maze is in good company as his Aunt Secret was part of the winning team in 2003, and his cousin Able was on the winning team in 2006, they have kept it in the family.
Wally and Jacqui Hoye and Sizzle, along with Daisy Peel and Jester also took the podium in the third place spot for their incredible showing in the tournament.
I am sure this all sounds like a giant brag blog, but, today it is! I am very proud of my dogs and I am very proud of myself. I have been blogging a bit about the importance of the mental game in agility and how I have been really trying to make it an even more important part of my agility game, it truly paid off this year! I felt more relaxed and more confident walking to the line each and every time that I can ever remember feeling I knew I could get around every one of those courses and went to the line with a PLAN!
I ran my plan and more often than not it resulted in the outcome that I was thrilled with! Not every run was a success, SoBe's IHC jumpers run could attest to that, it was downright comical truth be told, however, I put those moments behind me and simply moved on to the next run, next dog.
The mental game allowed me to go to Nationals and be the best partner and teammate I could be for my dog, it allowed me to recognize and cherish the good things that happened and forget about the not so good.
Nationals this year was everything I hoped it would be and more, when all was said and done the only thing that I did not take away was a spot on the World team, Maze landed in the 4th place spot by 5 points, instead of being disappointed I am incredibly proud of the fact that my boy Maze did so incredibly awesome this year that he was 4th overall in a field of over 50 dogs trying out for the team, what an accomplishment!
We gave it everything we had and after a very intense week Maze was top scoring 26" dog overall in team and had run clean runs in all but 2 classes, WOW!!
After all of that there was one run left, Wally, GP Finals!! The course was lovely and we were ready! Wally turned in a great run but, alas, missed his dog walk contact... oh, well we were THERE, it does not get much better than that!
In closing, My dogs were ready for Nationals this year, "I" was ready for Nationals this year and a great time was had by all!!!