Whew! What a weekend we had! ;D We had a blast; hanging with our friends, it was a really competitive event in every division, played with our dogs, ate good luck brownies, and rang cowbells until the final dog splashed down in the amateur finals.
I've always loved the competitiveness of DockDogs, and love to challenge my dogs and myself by setting a goal each year. Our goal is to always have jumps that are consistently 'just a little bit better' or a improve by 'a lot' :D Maybe cheesy to some people who just say they're 'only' here for the fun of the the dogs. Humbug! I say HECK YEAH I'm here to have fun with the dogs. But....while we're having 'fun', we can be competitive too. In fact I would rather come in 8th place against teams that kick our butt fair and square, than take home all the first place ribbons in an event where we out -jumped all the other dogs by several feet. What can I say....My knees won't let ME compete in sports anymore, but I still like to play hard. So...that's always kind of been MY thought anyhow, but now I'm in a quandary! [note]-I have kept records of every single jump from day one for all of my dogs. Many years later, it's SO COOL to go back and see what we did 8) Henna's first competition jump was 12' 02" in January 2005 (she was just a few months shy of 2 1/2 yrs). She had one more junior jump that day, and finally earned her senior title (2 events later) in March 2005. January, 2006 (3 events later) she hit her first 20+ footer. Henna then went on to earn her master title about 5 months later in June of 2006. In August 2006 she hit her first 22+footer (now THAT was fun day) 8) ;D The ENTIRE next season was just plain weird :-\ She started jumping ALL OVER the pool. Sometimes 15-feet with an occasional 20+footer. But not until on year later in August 2007 did we FINALLLLLLY see some consistency again. She was flying steady around 20'-22' for the remainder of the season, and into the next one. But one morning, in the winter of 2008, she wouldn't get up. She had degenerative disk disease, and had broken off some loose boney pieces on her spine. After a 6 week stint of crate rest, we worked slowly to get her back into shape to play and be a normal dog. Her neurologist recommended we retire her from Extreme Vertical (it was a good thing the new game of Speed Retrieve came out) :D We installed a swimming pool (veterinarian's recommendations don't ya' know ;)). Henna regained her strength by daily swimming, and returned to jumping. Once again her distances continued to improve, and she soon moved from 15-footers and back on up to 22-footers once more. But on July 30th, 2008 she hit a 23+footer, an then a 24-footer on the same day :o We had a BIG party on the dock after that one!!! One more week went by and we went to another event. She hit 3 more big jumps and, after ALL THIS TIME, she earned her Elite Title on August 8th (she was just one month shy of her 6th birthday). Last season I let her fly at 7 events (we did a LOT of traveling last year...LOL). She only hit one elite jump, and her distances are back into the low 20's and even sometimes the high teens. I've had to cut back to a couple practice jumps (and limit her to one wave a day) so that she may continue to play. She's 7 1/2 years old. We have a WHOLE LOT of 'thanks for coming' ribbons (as we call them here in the Northwest) to show for our last year of work. But I still pick up each and every one, print the event date and jump scores on the back, and keep them in a safe place. After all those years of hard work to earn an Elite Title, I've never wanted to take it away from her. She earned it fair and square...so it's all hers! But now I'm starting to wonder......[i]should[/i] I request a decrease in our title? Am I cheating us both out of something we worked so hard for, just so we can get 'places' again during competitions. I just can't make up my mind! ....and these are the things that keep me awake in bed at night.....LOL (how sad is that)! ::)
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