A Quote I like...

Caught this quote whilst reading a tribute to a late Agility dog:
"To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
It's by Ralph Waldo Emerson - an American (and a surprising one at that). I guess I liked it because it sums up simply what I feel everyone in their lives should strive to achieve, it is not a life wasted if you have done any of those things above. Call it cliche if you want, or the typical commercialised sap of the comfortable idealistic westerner but there comes a point in everyone's life where they ask of themselves 'Why am I here?'. If you cannot answer that question in any meaningful way (ie. 'I'm here to be a mindless drone who pays government taxes' is *not* a meaningful answer) then I think that's when people start to get depressed, to engage in self destructive behaviours and to no longer be healthy in both mind and body. To see that question answered so simply and beautifully is quite frankly enlightening and inspiring. Sometimes inspiration doesn't have to be the earth moving type.

Gosnells Jinx Broken..

Yay! We broke our Gosnells Club voodoo last night....we finally managed a clean run in the Masters Jumping Class...and it was a not too shabby 2nd place as well (1st was 22.83 seconds we were 22.91 seconds). We have never in Raven's history of trialling at these grounds cracked a pass, and we did it last night! She did a lovely Open Agility run too just missed the contact on the dogwalk, Open Jumping I realised too late that the turn we needed to make was pretty sharp - called her and she dropped a bar so we stopped. In Masters Agility there was only 1 qualifier and we were not it, we did not make it pass the first 5 obstacles (there was a call off from the A Frame which she thought was "run two strides on and *then* return to mum") and then she dropped a bar so we stopped. Overall very happy with 3 out of 4 runs - she really paid attention. Now we have another 2 weeks till our next trial but to tide us over we have Rob Michalski coming out from the US and I am getting instruction from him on Thurs, Fri and Sat next week and then we have a Show N Go on the Sunday for games.

Western Classic 2006

Well the Classic is over and done for another year - we had some very nice judges over for the agility - a Mr Michael Vigor, Brian Fielder, and a Mr Des Coyles from South Australia. Raven held her own again and won first place in Open Agility - 32.43seconds on a 59 second course. The Masters Course in Agility was extremely controlled and whilst we managed a hard part she popped the last two weavers - I certainly wasn't disappointed though as literally only 2 dogs went clear out of the field of 50. Masters Jumping we stayed the course but she knocked two bars. Open Jumping we knocked a bar just before the weave entry. So luckily we redeemed ourselves in the Open Agility. The Teams event - well I completely stuffed our chance in jumping - she dropped a bar and I just completely forgot the course at that point - went literally blank in the head! We got through to the finals in Agility - she decided that on the table the judge saying "1" was just as good as the judge saying "Go" so she left and we had to get back on the table - we ended up 6th out of 19 teams so not too bad. She was pushing the envelope the whole way with me over that event though - not doing two on two off, and pressuring the table count. I find it hard to fathom how a 6 year old fluffy black and white 16 kilo wisp of a girl Border Collie can intimidate me so much - I feel her eyes just staring straight at me daring me to look her in the eye so she can wind herself up even more and break her table! Anyway three more weekends till our next trial now *sigh*