Some of you might know that I am pretty heavily involved and competing in a dog sport called agility, a fast paced team sport where doggies of all kinds and sizes, jump, climb and run into tunnels upon their handler’s direction. For the past year, I have been competing to rank one of the top 5 dogs in my breed, the Portuguese Water Dog. My main competition dog is Milou, named after Tintin’s Snowy. She is crazy, has way too much energy, is too smart and makes me laugh constantly. She is my heart! At the end of every year, the top 5 dogs of every breed are invited to compete head to head against each other in Long Beach in what is called the AKC Agility Invitationals. Incidentally, we have photographed all of the prestigious televised competition and will do so again this year.
Last year, we came 6th, behind by 22 points! I didn’t even know I was in the running until very late (I had no idea we were even top 20), so we were trying to catch up while juggling life and work on the weekends. 22 points is just one day of competing! I was devastated. Then we found out that one of the top 5 dogs decided not to go, which means the invitation would then go to #6 – us!! I was excited, we mailed off the entry forms and we waited. And waited. Only to realize days after the entries close that the officials never received the entry and that it had gotten lost in the mail! I was crushed!! Come competition day (which was my birthday!), I sat ringside photographing and working, wistfully wishing Milou and I could compete as well. But it gave me the focus and driving force to go for it this year!
In December, Milou and I will compete against the other 4 Portuguese Water Dogs, 2 of which belong to my adopted agility parents, Ron and Barb. They were the ones who pushed me to go for it and had more faith in us than I did. I am looking forward to the big event, just having fun, and sharing this amazing experience with my dog. I am so incredibly lucky to have been blessed with such an amazing dog. As crazy as she is, I would never trade her for the world. Now we have to decide if we want to go for it again for next year.
Milou, in all her black fuzziness. She’s my black teddy bear.
Milou with her little border collie sister, Malice.
Malice showing her aerial style!
One of Milou’s best doggie friend, Shadow. An amazingly fast chocolate lab. Another frisbee addict
And Shadow’s baby sister, Nalu. One day, she will outrun the border collies just like her big sister
We did a doxie doggie transport on Friday. Fendi is an adorable and sweet doxie. Her owner had to give her up due to an unfortunate house foreclosure. Fendi is now in foster care and is looking for a home. We had the fortunate chance to meet Fendi and transport her to her next foster home. Any of you guys looking for an affectionate doxie?! How can you say no to that face!?
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