Looking back

Hi there!  Cait is still working on her next blog.  She won't tell me what it's about.  She said it should be ready soon and in the mean time she said I could write something again... she is such a good girl!

I guess it's inevitable... at the close of the year you look back over the past 12 months and reflect on your accomplishments, defeats and your life in general. You look forward to the new year and make plans, set goals and hope. There are lots of great moments and it's hard to pick just a couple. But as I look back over the past year, and see how far my little Cait and I have traveled, four events stand out in my mind...
First was in February when Cait got the SJVBCA Novice Top Dog award for 2009. We received a nice jacket from the club. I had already moved her up into Pro Novice and we had been to a trial or two and not done very well. But receiving the award made me think back on our first trial in January 2009... when I was so nervous and forgot most of my flanks and Cait was so wild the sheep just ran around me in circles... to the last Novice trial in October where I was able to stand at the post and drive the whole course. During lunch when I received the jacket with every one telling me to put on the jacket and I remember my hands shaking so bad that I couldn't even unzip the darn thing.

Second was the invitational SDT at the Mid State Fair in Paso Robles. I had been lucky the year before and had been invited as a filler, with Zeke, because all the Big Hats were at another trial trying to qualify for the national finals in Klamath Falls. I got invited back and of course Cait was the dog to go. I was nervous because we would be competing against big time handlers with open dogs (here I was a novice with my 2 year old dog and there were dogs there that had competed at the National finals!! Scary, I tell you!) It would be our first arena trial and I knew the sheep would be light and with pushy, speedy Cait it could have been a disaster. We got to do our first competitive sheds and single and we nailed them! My goal for the day was to make it in the top 10 so we could move onto the final round. We did! Everything went well during the second go except a little bobble by me during the single... I got flustered and Cait felt that but we finally got it. You can really tell on the video when I started to get nervous you can see Cait get quicker and tighter... just goes to show how much your dog feeds off of you and your emotions. I think this was the most fun trial of the year for me. Everyone was very complimentary and thought Cait was a really nice dog. I even had several handlers come up to me and tell me that we should have placed higher than we did. WOW!! I was just happy to be there and make it to the top 10.
Third was the Pleasanton Scottish Games. We had never been to a timed obstacle trial and I really had no idea what to expect. The whole weekend was a crazy, loud, nerve wracking time. I was pretty nervous but my little girl came through and saved me... yet again. Everyone was so nice. The spectators were there in droves and they all wanted to talk and pet the dogs. Cait was in her element there... she is a sponge when it comes to soaking up attention! What really hit home for me that weekend was when Cait and I are working the sheep everything else disappears... the bagpipes, the drums, the heat, the millions of people, the screaming kids, time, everything. All that is there is Cait, the sheep, the obstacles and the strategies I have worked out in my head. We won a belt buckle at the trial.. my first ever dog one. I can tell you that, for some reason, I am more proud of that one buckle than all the horse ones put together.
Fourth was the Porterville Fall Driving Trial.... the trial I wrote about last time. A large part of our success was the luck of the draw... we just happened to get sets that wanted to move. (That and the fact that my friend, Judy, set out during my runs and she told the sheep that a bad ass little bitch was coming up the field to get them and they better get their cute fluffy butts moving!) Whatever it was I felt Cait and I walked away from that trial with a even better partnership than ever. And I learned to ALWAYS think positive!
Looking to 2011... My plans are to get an additional dog to trial with. Make more progress with Cait. I feel like I really need to step up my game, as I am the weak one on the team. Cait always gives me 110% and any mistakes she makes is from trying so hard. Moving her and I up to Open is always on the back of my mind but I feel we both need more experience and miles under our belts.  Hopefully, we can make it to a lot of trials, work lots of different types of sheep and learn and learn and learn!