Number 1 Agility Portuguese Water Dog?!!

Some of you might know that we are pretty active and serious competitors in dog agility. So don’t mind me while I throw in a personal brag. When I first started agility, I would wistfully wish that my dog, Milou, and I could some day be the #1 Portuguese Water Dog team in the US. Of course, I knew that this is something super duper hard to do, and almost impossible with such a crazy and independent dog like Milou. I didn’t even think we could compete! And with such a crazy work schedule last year, we had to skip quite a number of competitions last year as well as training classes. We narrowly came ahead of well seasoned, older, experienced dogs that were competing way more than we were! I was pretty sure we couldn’t come close to #1 last year. You see Milou is the kind of dog that has a mind of her own, if I am not right on point, running ahead of her and telling her what to do and where to go, she will just chose whateve obstacle to do on her own. So when a good friend emailed us to tell us that we actually made it to #1 for 2008, I just about exploded. I screamed, I jumped on the bed and I hugged Milou so tight she kicked me off and went to play with the ball herself. I owe a lot to Milou, she’s the very first dog I own and I started taking photos of dogs competing in agility when I would get bored at competitions waiting for our turn. If it wasn’t for her, I would have never considered photography seriously. That’s right, my dog got me into photography! So here’s one for the dog that started it all. I love you Milou =) Thanks for being my buddy, my team mate, my care bear and my muse.

Milou or more formally CH MACH 3 Alto Mare Peixes Do Voo RAE NAP NJP MXF

Oh and for you agility/dog geeks out there, those are just her AKC titles. I’m not about to dig up her USDAA, CPE and NADAC titles, but she’s also a APD, C-ATCH, competed in the invitationals last year, has water titles and even got a IABCA BIS. Not bad for my first dog, eh?

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