My thoughts turn to this particular topic often. When my flyball club was going through some growing pains last year, as all sports clubs will do, I kept telling them, remember, flyball is just a game we play with dogs. Meaning, we can strive for perfection and a win every time, and indeed we should have those goals, but we are out there in the ring with dogs. I'm not even suggesting the dogs are the weak link in the chain, but dogs are dogs. We can't expect them to understand division placements and interpersonal squabbling and title points.
It's so easy to lose sight of this. I did agility and flyball with Iz for years and accumulated many ribbons and points and letters after her name. But in the end, it was my pup's joy at being with me, no matter what crazy thing I was asking her to do, that matters. The joy of the moment was simply in being together.
Never lose sight of that. Give all of your furry ones a big hug tonight.
1 comment:
How true this is for us, the UTB, especially after this last tournament.
We had so many great personal bests and best improvements all together and neither of the teams won, as a matter of fact we didn't even win a single race.
But what mattered the most was that we as a club were having a blast, that we were seeing awesome accomplishments by our dogs and how much more into the game they have gotten over the last year of hard work on our part as a club.
We treat each and every dog as our own and we take great pride in their every little baby step they make.
In one of the runs where Blink had to step in on a team (baptism by fire, as we called it), Ann ran Grommit, since I couldn't run 2 dogs, and you can see it on the videos we took, Grommit was loving it. You can see the smiles on their faces.
We got back home, stoked more than ever, with no wins, no toys, but with so many great memories.
http://utahtailblazersflyball.blogspot.com/2008/09/more-accomplishments-and-milestones.html
http://utahtailblazersflyball.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-really-goes-on-at-flyball.html
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