I’m a dog trainer — I’ve done it for a living, but mostly as a hobby. Today I had a major accomplishment.
My beagle took a first place in agility — Open Preferred 12″. I’m as proud of this as any other accomplishment.
Agility courses are very long for me. I have trouble in class even standing and waiting my turn — and usually take a chair with me. My dog is very well trained, but doesn’t do well because I can’t run.
That’s a shame, and frustrating for us.
But today, she took a first place and did it in 59.99 seconds. That was faster than any of the other dogs in the regular 12″ class (we ran Open Preferred 12″ which is for old slow dogs or old slow handlers — we get 5 extra seconds which we didn’t need). It was also faster than the 16″ class, and jump height doesn’t bother Marcie.
There are pictures of her on my personal page at http://www.augustweb.com/~kathleen — see “my dogs”.
The part about being diabetic, and being overweight, and being this out of shape bothers me because it makes her look bad, and it makes my training ability look bad.
It was nice to make her look good today. And yeah, she sniffs on the course, but man does she move fast when she does it.