When a door opens and we walk through it, even though we may be surrounded with self doubt and fear, what is on the other side can be one of life’s greatest gifts….. the joy we feel from accomplishing a dream.

The first time I experienced this interesting life phenomena was many years ago when I was mountain bike racing. I trained with a good friend who was going to race with me but the first day of the race season she was training for a marathon. I went alone and as I walked down that long line of cars with bikes and teams, the fear crept in.. Did I really want to do this? Why am I doing this? Can I do this? I was alone and no one could support me with their encouraging words.

I made myself continue walking down that long line of cars to check into the mt. bike race in Case Grande, Arizona.  AND.. that day I not only won my division but also got asked to be on the Cannondale Mountain Bike Racing Team that season. It was an amazing year. I met so many cool people in my division. Had so many challenges but it was one of those once in a life time opportunities that I could have missed if I had closed the door and walked away that day.

This exact experience came to me with Kaffee’s OTCH journey. On Saturday at the obedience show in Tucson, AZ we had a disappointing and discouraging day. Kaffee did not qualify in his Utility B class and lost his run off for a 3rd place in Open B.  Kaffee lost his qualification once again on his GO OUTS. I had no idea how to fix this since I have tried everything I thought including re-training the go outs for 3 months this summer.

With only 3 OTCH points remaining, I was ready to give up obedience after the last few disappointing shows. Perhaps if I had not had dinner scheduled with a good friend I might have left….

But I stayed for Sunday… just like I kept walking down that line of cars at the mountain bike race many years ago.

We went in and did Utility and got a second place – 1 OTCH point. OH NO, only 2 points left. There was no escape left for me. 

We then went into Open B where the long DOWNS were first followed by the long SITS. If you have shown in Open you know this is often where dogs will break their SIT when it comes after the long down and NQ themselves often missing a beautiful score and win.

We had a lovely Open run …. And somehow I felt different when we did our heeling… Everything seemed lovely. We had compliments.. BUT.. the LONG DOWN and SIT remained.

Kaffee was perfect as were all the dogs in the class for the downs and sits part of the Open exercise.

The judge called us in for placements after all was finished. He first announced the winner…. “Dog number 305”. I was barely listening but my friends in the class knowing we only needed this win with 2 more OTCH points; they started screaming and cheering. I could not believe it… WE WON OPEN, GOT OUR REMAINING POINTS AND KAFFEE’S OTCH.

What was so amazing is that in looking back at our fall shows, this seemed almost to be scripted to be where we were suppose to finish our OTCH title. The past 3 shows were out of state where I traveled alone and knew almost no one. Finishing our points at those shows alone would not have been as memorable and special and AWSOME as it was in Tucson where I knew many people in our class from our training and showing. It was so incredible: these friends were genuinely happy, excited and for that moment in time shared my joy and accomplishment in this very long journey.

This was written by a friend in the class:

            I'm thrilled to say I WAS there to join in all the cheers, hugs, jumping up and down and general hysteria!!  I'd love to say that we came in 2nd just to let her finish, but I have to admit that Cynde and Kaffee had a beautiful run and finished in style--fair and square!  I hope if we ever get lucky enough to get to that stage, that Shooter and I are surrounded by such a fabulous group of friends and supporters!  It was a great moment (which went on for more than a few moments!) which I'm delighted to have shared with this great team!

Great day,

Rachel

I will never forget the moment when the judge announced Kaffee for first place…his 2 treasured points and his OTCH title. AND KAFFEE was High in Trial and High Combined (Open and Utility) dog for that day. Everything was so PERFECT. I will be forever thankful to those who celebrated that moment with me.

I am so happy that I documented my fear and self doubts in the last Blog post. Unless you have been on this journey it might be hard to understand the hills and valleys of emotions in an OTCH journey --- the joy of the wins and points; commitment to perfection in training and transferring this to showing; many many trips out of state, traveling alone to shows; disappointment; low class number with either no points or few points; self doubt with those dry spells and the fear of not being able to accomplish this dream. These titles do not come easy; they are not gifts given to us. It is as if part of the journey is experiencing and working through these personal challenges. 

I still find it interesting that so many things lined up to make this final day perfect. It was as I wrote like it had been scripted that Sunday December 7th would be the day.

Susan Garrett’s ebook titled, “Without Pressure there are NO DIAMONDS.” How perfect. How true summing up our journeys, goals, and dreams with our dogs. 

Fear of failure:  fear that I will not be able to finish Kaffee’s OTCH; fear that I will communicate my fear to Kaffee; fear that Kaffee will not do his GO OUTS correctly and fail his Utility; fear of what people will say if I cannot get his last 3 points; fear of disappointing others in me; fear of disappointing my self once again… What if I can’t finish Kaffee ???? So many fears going into our obedience show season.

3 OTCH points… it should be so easy …  Kaffee has continued to earn those points throughout his showing days… But Kaffee is almost 10 and he clearly has problems with his GO OUTS putting him out of his wins. AND he must get a first place in our small classes (10 or below) to get the needed points. So I am allowing my fear to take over once again; but there is no good escape this time… and I must change this if I am going to finish Kaffee.

How interesting that Susan Garrett just put out an e-book  this week for her online Handling 360 group of which I am apart called, “Without Pressure We Get No Diamonds.” This got my attention. She was speaking to me in all she wrote. Could it be that I was not alone in allowing my fear and self-doubt to keep me from being successful in my dog sport goals.

In this interesting writing Susan talks about how fear prevents so many of us from achieving our goals or what we want. Our self doubts allow fear to take over our handling or showing of our dogs and prevent us from trusting all the training, and hard work we have put in working with our dogs. Fear and focusing on the outcome make it difficult to achieve our goals and desires.

I realized after reading this that fear and self-doubt lay behind my decision over a year ago to not finish Kaffee’s OTCH; he needed 18 more points and we had not shown in obedience for over a year due to his iliopsosas injury. But then my young Border Collie Myst was being trained in obedience through Utility and would be ready to start showing soon. I needed to get back in the ring to keep up my showing skills so that when Myst was ready I would be ready also.

I entered a show last June to get back into the ring and Kaffee won a High in Trial (HIT) and High Combined (HC) and earned OTCH points. Kaffee enjoys his work with me and seemed so happy to be back showing again. He was smiling and jumping and I had to work hard to keep him from barking with excitement.

We worked all summer on improving his GO OUTS using Laura Romanik’s “GO BOP.” I went back and read her notes from her seminar in Phoenix a few years ago and ended up doing a few online lessons with Laura for both dogs. We worked very hard this summer, hauling our obedience equipment to new and unfamiliar places and helping both Kaffee and Myst to better understand the default for a GO OUT is to go and touch the stantion and be able to do this from 50 feet and in new places… the FIRST TIME.

This was the proof that Myst had to be able to perform before I taught her to do a pre-barrier sit so we worked a great deal on this for 3 months and then she GOT IT!

Kaffee also seemed to improve with his understanding of the GO OUT and in his first trial in the fall in New Mexico he did well even competing against a very experienced professional handler with 2 OTCH dogs. Kaffee earned  more OTCH points, a HIT and HC.

At the next show in Nevada he continued to be consistent in both Open and Utility and got more OTCH points, a HIT and HC BUT.. I was very disappointed that in the last Utility class that he showed last in, and all the other competitors failed their Utility run, Kaffee also failed.. The last 4 OTCH points would have easily been his if he had continued his consistent performance with mid 90 scores in Utility. Huge disappointment.

We had 4 more OTCH points to go and went to a show near Las Vegas thinking we would be able to finish his points there. Unfortunately I had not remembered that this show has different ring gates and the blue stantion that we used for our GO OUT training had been replaced at this show with metal standions that could not be seen as well and rebar stakes that added confusion for him. Kaffee only got one OTCH point for a second in Utility. The show numbers were very low so his win and lovely score in Open did not give him points. Again, Huge Disappointment.

I write this account of Kaffee’s most recent obedience shows and my disappointments at “all most getting those points” to share my excuse for my fear and doing my usual to avoid my fear of failure. I have stopped showing Kaffee in obedience over the last few  years saying he was too old; had had an injury; was now doing agility with Myst… so many excuses all to walk away from the possibility of not being successful. But now we are there and I must face it. I can’t think of a way to escape this time.

I remember listening to one of Susan Garrrett’s audios of a coaching call when she discussed how before she shows even when the stakes are high, she never focuses on the outcome (what you want right now) but rather takes the time before she goes into to ring to mentally prepare by being thankful and just working as a team with her dog… doing the best they can do together. And for her this moving from “what I want” to “what I have and being thankful” is part of her success.

What is interesting is that I have done this same thing when I have gotten to shows and I think there is no way Kaffee can win and get points since there are dogs and handlers there that can score higher than Kaffee in Utility. So my focus has been on being thankful to have Kaffee and being able to show with him on such a beautiful day where this is not about world peace… but having fun and connecting with my special Kaffee.

My focus was then on doing the very best we could do, knowing that we have trained, are as ready as we can be and we will just go in and have fun. Each exercise is a separate time for me to connect with him and build his trust and joy in doing the work… nothing more… AND guess what.. this has worked so beautifully. He has had some of his best and highest scored runs in classes where this has been my mental preparation. In New Mexico a few months ago he earned a 199, his highest score ever, in his Open class… and it was not a give away easy scores judge.

So now I must put aside my self doubts, fear, and anxiety and let it be a reminder to me that my mental preparation needs to be to focus on how well prepared we are; to forget the outcome and just go into the ring and have fun. I will support Kaffee with my positive focused energy and make this the best experience possible for us both. We will walk into the ring with CONFIDENCE and POSITIVE EXPECTANCY. WE CAN DO THIS.. we have done this before!

I have to think that we have been brought to this final challenge for a reason…. I need to learn from this about how my fears and self doubts limit me and my possibilities or I will face these same issues with Myst. How I escape from successes in my life. Nothing in life is a coincidence and Kaffee’s journey to his last 3 points forces me to  no longer walk away from the challenge.

I mantra must now be , “without pressure, we get no diamonds.”