Grace Is Now Excellent!!
Grace Proudly Posing on her favorite snuggly, with her 1st place Ribbon, her Qualifying Ribbon, and an Amazing New Title Ribbon!!
Heather and Grace competed in our major indoor Agility Trial of the year which is held in conjunction with Seattle's largest all breed dog show for the year . The event was March 11th, so it has taken a lot of time to get this on the web.
Heather has been undergoing chemotherapy since the beginning of November, and had found the energy to run Grace in some Agility trials during this period, but they were not able to get the elusive 3rd Qualifying score in order to earn her Open Agility Preferred Title from the AKC. For this event Heather was tired, having taken 17 chemotherapy treatments, including a treatment the day before this Agility trial. She was pretty bald and shiny, but she went out there in her stocking feet, and really ran hard with Grace. It made a big difference, and Grace really perked up, paid attention, and ran as hard as she could.
Grace had been in this even last year and the scene there this year was similar. There were dogs and people everywhere and a large carpeted ring and lots of bleacher seating for spectators. The course was surrounded by people and in some places they were 2 or 3 deep, and the bleachers were full. The crowd was probably 300 or more people watching. Maybe 500? Anyway, lots of people were there. Also, for the benefit of the people in the crowd who didn't know anything about agility, there was a public address system giving a running commentary for the spectators while the dogs ran. It was very different, and pretty intense.
When Grace and Heather ran, Barb Davis (famous Agility Competitor from these parts) was giving a running commentary. She was so informative for the crowd, and very helpful for the competitors. She was so nice, that when the dogs were running, she would encourage them go continue on with their runs as she would announce something to the effect, that "this dog can still qualify, as it has only one refusal, and that is allowed". Which is exactly what she said when Heather and Grace ran the course. When Heather got Grace to the table, the requirement was for a "Down", and Heather was having a hard time getting Grace to do it. Barb announced that they could still Qualify so Heather took that cue, and stuck with it, and Grace did her down for the full count, and they were able to continue on for the rest of the run, and Qualified!!
It was very emotional experience to see Grace do so well in such a stressful situation. It was overwhelming to see Heather and Grace, who had both worked so hard with no luck at all for several months of trying to have just one more good run from Grace, to finally get the great run they had been striving for. There were lots of people who knew what was going on reduced to tears when Heather and Grace crossed the finish line.
So now Grace can run in Excellent Standard, and Excellent Jumpers. She has surpassed all our expectations. For Grace to have done this is truly amazing to me.
Grace is now Willowmere's Lady Stetson OAP,OAJP.
To view the video clip of this run follow this link:
