Beginning to heal

We went to the agility trial today.  It wasn't easy, and I almost turned around right before I got there.  The first couple of hours were hard...very hard.  There were lots of tears and lots of hugs and lots of stories about my boy.  Several people mentioned that he was the first white shepherd that they had ever seen, how beautiful he was, and how he was such a good dog.  Fortunately, the word had gotten around on Friday, so most of the people there that I know, already knew.  I did okay most of the day.  I had one major meltdown, that fortunately was only witnessed by one person (or others who saw were kind enough to pretend they didn't).  And I think my sunglasses hid the minor random tears triggered by things.  Walking out onto the standard course for the walk thru prior to Lonya's run was hard...my next standard run was supposed to be Kal's.

My girls did very well, better than I was expecting, especially Lonya.  Sparrow ran both her runs first.  Her Jackpot was very nice.  She was slow in the opening, her feet seemed a bit sore from her allergy.  But, she was the first dog of the class to get the gamble.  And gambles are not her specialty.  She was one point short of what she needed in the opening, but it was a nice run.  Her colors run was pretty good also, she ran around one jump and I choose not to fix it.  We weren't running for Qs today, we were running to try to get things a bit back to normal.

I wasn't sure I would run Lonya at all...she's still so new to the sport, I wasn't sure it was fair to her to ask her to run when I wasn't myself.  I decided to try it and just go in and ask her to run, but not fix things.  She did so so well.  Both runs would have been Qs if I had fixed her single bobble in each.  Her colors run was really nice, she ran around a jump...when I front crossed I think.  But, the rest of it was fast and clean.  She almost ran by another jump, but fixed it.  Her time was under 14 seconds, course time was around 30.  Her other run was Standard, she again, only made one error.  She ran around the Aframe, there was a frame/tunnel discrimination and I actually thought she was going to take the tunnel.  I think she realized that was incorrect so just skipped the whole thing!  She caught a front cross really well, got her weaves on the first try, and was fast!  Under 39 sec when course time was 70.

No videos today, I didn't ask anyone to tape.  I wasn't sure what would happen, and didn't really want video evidence if I couldn't run and had to leave.

I can't believe Kal hasn't even been gone for two days yet.  I woke up this AM at almost exactly 24 hours after I let him go...  I'm seeing a couple of changes in the girls, mostly Sparrow.  I think she is trying to move into Kal's role of being our protector and leader, though she doesn't want to.  I hope that Lonya is able to take over soon..a lot to ask of a young dog, but I don't think Sparrow will be good at this job.   Sparrow has never been a dog that lunges or barks at dogs when she's in her crate, but she did that several times today...twice at a BC pup.  The pup had played with Lonya earlier, and that seemed to concern Spar, even though the play was very appropriate.   She just doesn't quite "get" what she needs to do, which doesn't surprise me, as Sparrow has never been an overly protective dog.  If she seems something outside that needs barked at, she would bark once to alert Kal, than let him take over.   I have a feeling that as the days go by, I'll be finding more and more things that Kal did to keep things running smoothly.

I plan to write about Kal here quite a bit...it's actually been good for me to write about him...even though it makes me cry.  Part of me feels guilty that we went to the trial today without him...but I really to think that he was there watching us, and telling his sisters to go easy on me this weekend.  I miss him so so much...