That's A Wrap

The 2012 trial year has come to an end for me. Not that I won't be trialing for the rest of 2012 but those trials won't count towards getting into the USBCHA finals for this year. Bitter-sweet but ever so needed and welcome...I've been trialing pretty much ever weekend since Big Willow. Looking back, I really have had the time of my life...memories that I loved making and will enjoy the replays, surely adding to them: making them 'more than life was' as only memories can become. I've been awake at night wrestling with the idea of "one more trial"...."one more last ditch effort to find a few more points laying around"....points that Miss L&M Belle aka Bella could use so I don't feel the need to obsessively click the points page until the Fat Lady sings. For every reason to go...there are two to stay...and so I stay and work on "me". My ability to let go and embrace life as it unfolds...sigh. There are projects that need attending to...and hay that needs hauled. A barn that needs cleaned and plans that need made. Plans for fitness and continued partnership and plenty of over-thinking in the heat of the dog days of summer. And if by chance it was not enough.....that will be yet another "letting go" opportunity...dying to "should have done more".

My last dance was Palm Cottage.....a trial that seems hell-bent on molding me as a person and handler. After the first day, I changed the name of the trial to the F'ing Gate Trial and I'm not talking Fetch Gate either! Last year saw Nell, as a first year open dog, running all over the field....me, yelling and screaming and frothing at the mouth.....Nell doing the Nell thing and getting more and more frantic...me not paying attention to any of that; only my disappointment. Nell ended up stopless and gathered the exhaust pen bringing all 100 sheep out onto the field. I ended up embarrassed on so many different levels.....I folded my cards and pulled her from the next day, ashamed of my behavior and knowing Nell and I needed some partnership counseling.

This year, I've confessed, I have put some tension in my girl at the post...so I have worked hard to alleviate that. As I walked to the post at the F'ing Gate...oh wait, I mean Palm Cottage trial that early Saturday morning, I do indeed know Nell was looking at me. I tried setting her up, getting her to look up the field.....but gave up and went with the nonchalant attitude instead.....caring not as I hit my start button on my watch and my girl crossed and ran amuck all over the field. Oh but it was a new tape, she holding the player not willing to put in the old one......I knew this day was about me. Not about scores, or what critical people thought of my dog...it was about ME! Me and death to temper, and strangling running mad, and dying to ego, and letting go of anger. And so, I kept my cool and talked my dog through that f'ing gate and up to the sheep....and my Nellie girl said "Well Done!".

Funny how when I work on me, hold up my end of the bargain...whether it be a little more on tough sheep or a little less when the dogs "have it".....the girls are amazing. I'm beginning to understand it is not about all "foo foo la la" angels singing and all is good....it is about team work and correcting when the dog needs it and giving back when they've got it. I was talking to a mentor friend the other day, and she mentioned that what she saw at the Buck Brannaman clinic she attended was a "man who never did anything out of anger or ego."

My Sunday's runs had both dogs getting up to the sheep...through the gate, some 650 yards away.....tough tough sheep that required me and the dogs to work together without questions....on a day where half the handlers DQ'd or RT'd. I had one of "those"runs.....a run where I had to work hard with Nell to get my sheep around the post because of a running killing draw right there. Once we got the sheep going...they went and I was able to give back to Nell a little of what I had taken into my own command at the post. Nell had her sheep and was driving along on her cross drive...one of the areas that Miss Nell rocks...and as we started towards the cross-drive panels....I asked for a flank. Nell gave a quick glance over her shoulder and it was if she was saying..."um...no!" In my mind, I thought.....hmm...as Nell drove the sheep right thought the panels! For the first time, I am feeling that relationship with Nell.....that magic, hard earned relationship that happens when she does what I say but I trust her when she questions. She covered my butt for sure....and I am hoping, with time, I can begin to let go and trust her to do her part so I don't ask for a flank when panel-itis tries to creep back into me.

At the end of the day.....what I thought would be about "winning" and "points".....the run for the 2012 finals can be summarized with a theme....."Relationship: training without anger or ego". Where 5th place at Big Willow has already begun to fade and be forgotten, even in my mind......I get to keep, fresh with technicolor clarity, the lessons learned from my dogs. I owe them a debt of gratitude for allowing me, forcing me, encouraging me.....to learn.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~Robert Frost


......I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.....


Seize the Day!!!!