Today Molly and I entered our CPE trial weekend: four Standard entries , one Standard Q needed for our C-ATCH.
We ran Fullhouse and I had a fast dog, actual fast trial weaves and a Q with 36 points.
Then it was time for Standard. Today was offering two rounds of Standard. I was feeling pretty cocky, pretty sure that we would nail it today and get to relax for the rest of the weekend.
We NQd the first run after the fourth obstacle. Molly pulled too hard around the fifth jump and when I called her to come back to me she thought I wanted an (off course) tunnel. The rest of the run snowballed into one of our typical fault ridden disasters...
And now I was extremely anxious, Q-brained, trying my best to be zen and chill and not focus on the fact that we were no longer in that "no big deal! We have two Standards to run today!" buffer zone.
The second run went really well. Perfect...except that Molly did an Aframe flyoff and we NQd. I was devastated two fold. We did not get our C-ATCH today. We did not get that big ribbon and the bar that I saw with "Flexible Flyers C-ATCH Molly April 2015" printed onto it, made just for us. But , and I mean this, even worse... she missed her A-frame contact. Even worse. I was so proud, so unbelievably happy with our months and months of nice running A-frames. Yes we've had a few fly offs but all of them I could related to myself being in a poor position. She has not once blown an Aframe with me running alongside of her. And I am so scared that we are back in the bad shape that we were in before.
Colors was the last run of the day and I specifically chose the course with the A-frame in it, hoping to make myself feel better. Same thing, a near flyoff that was so close to being a scoreable fault that I am honestly shocked the judge didn't call it based on how it looks on my video. (We did qualify. I would trade that Q for a pretty A-frame in a flash, obviously.) Heart sinking when I have lovingly played and replayed our runs of that beautiful girl striding all the way down the Aframe as fast as her feet can take her.
I am so capable of loving our journey, of enjoying these moments good and bad, of knowing that no matter what I get to go home with the best dog in the world. But I am shaken to my core to think that we might be back to having an A-frame problem. Our A-frame problems were such a miserable choking and agonizing thing for me. It takes everything I have to trust her and run and not micromanage her , and until today she has succeeded with that trust. And I don't want to go back to how things were before. We can do it, I am capable of this too...but it sure is hard to feel like you've left something ugly in your past, only to have it come roaring back.
This cannot be happening. :(
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