It’s New Years Eve, I’m not going out for another hour and the dogs are just back from their walk. Not sure how to describe this year just past. Lots of changes, some terrible and some very good.
2009 ends and 2010 starts on a blue moon. It seems as good a thing as any to wish on.
Happy New Year everyone!
Our 2009 goals, which I thought were way optimistic at the time.
Turns out it wasn’t as hard as all that. Dyl breezed into Primary with points and wins to prove it, breezed past his FDG some time midway through the summer season. We like to keep ourselves on our toes on a few counts; we got the last handful of points to take us over 100 AW points at Wyre.
This year, Dylan and I’s partnership started with Kim. Everything starts with Kim, in the end. There’s no way Kim could have objectively considered the options and presented her conclusions to me, like a human would do, but I do wonder if some part of her didn’t just know. Because the same weekend that Kim said she was done with this, Dylan said “hey, I can do what she does”. Dyl had been getting better placings and had won a couple of classes already, but I still wasn’t taking him as a serious competitor, and yet that weekend that Kim walked away, he won more than Kim had ever won at a single competition. So maybe Kim was trying to say that I had this other dog who was just waiting for his chance and needed the opportunity to prove himself, and the only way she could get me to listen was to walk away. Maybe Kim is less selfish than I think she is, or maybe she just viewed this as an opportunity to spend more time at home sleeping.
Whatever ways, it worked. Agility is so exciting right now with Dylan, we’ve been picking up the pace and smoothing over the problems, and it feels like we’re just on the brink of being a really great team.
Flyball has been a bit of a mixed bag. Dylan has occasionally wavered, but he is much more enthusiastic and noisy about racing now. His box turn is getting more consistent; probably around 75% at his worst competitions. Still work to do, but better!
For 2010, then.
Maybe crazy. I think we can achieve the first two, in some way or another. Theoretically Dylan could already be out of Grade 3, since he has the points, but I’d like a few more top-5 places to confirm he’s ready to move up. The BAD-Bronze is touchable, almost; we have 4 wins, just 1 more to go. Both the Silver AW and FD seem wildly out of reach, but we need something out of reach to aim for. We’ll see what happens!
The dogs had a good Christmas. The dogs always have a good Christmas, but they had an especially good one this year. They got some lovely new toys, lots of chews, and Kim got some ultra fashionable leg warmers from Accessorize. Unfortunately she has skinny hind legs so they only fit on her front paws, but they are unbelievably awesome1. They also got snow, which is the best Christmas present any dog could want.
We walked in said snow a lot, had a tasty Christmas dinner, and various other goodies. It’s been a bit of a strange Christmas this year for various reasons, but the dogs are always constant and always cheerful. Especially Mollie; she’s like a little kid at Christmas, she gets far too excited and overdoes everything, and has to go and have a time out when she gets too silly.
I know the blog is becoming a bit of a boring photo journal at the moment, which I promise won’t continue. However, I wanted to post for every one of the twelve days of Christmas, and it would take too long to write, so you’ll all have to put up with a few photo posts.
All the photos on this post were taken on Christmas Day. They all came out a bit dark because it was 3:30 and the sun was disappearing behind the hills, but the dogs had such a lovely time; Kim even tried to play with Mollie, but that’s a post in it’s own right.
1No, I can’t think of any time when Kim might be able to wear any leg warmers either.
| Sometimes I walk when the ground has turned white And I can’t quite decide which way should be right. With the wind at my tail I do like to run, And head all the way back, the way I’ve just come. The other option’s to pounce with all my fur flowing, Leaving the deep prints to say where I’m going. But sometimes I stand with the snow at my paws, Shut my eyes tight and just hope for some more. |
  |
