Today two agility friends shared this video on Facebook (and more to come, I have a feeling), so I wanted to share it with you.
Those who are not dog people (or horse people, coming from my "old life") don't really understand how we can spend all our free time, "waste" our money, and exhaust ourselves just "running our dogs" through courses and being happy with it. This video shows exactly why--we do it because we love our dogs. We love the happiness it brings us to work together and have fun. We might not Q every time, or, if we do, we might only bring home ribbons that clutter our walls or our shelves, but that's not why we do it.
I had a former boss who flat out said, "You know, you'd actually be able to travel and do more things like I do if you didn't waste your money on dog agility." (Oh, yes, she actually said that.) I was appalled by her saying that to me. My response? "I don't waste my money doing dog agility. It's my sport and it's something I've grown to love. If I didn't do agility with my dogs, I think we'd all be unhappy."
After a particularly hard weekend of not Qing with LaMesa, I always need to be reminded about how much she still loves me. She doesn't know we didn't Q--she still got her treats and she got to play with mom, one-on-one. For Dally, I've always had to make it fun. Now I see how both girls run their little hearts out for me every time we get to the starting line.
We do agility because we love our dogs. We do it because they are our hearts and bring us joy. If a Q or a championship title come along the way, then that's just the icing on the cake. Until then, we'll continue to "waste" our money on those "cheap ribbons" and the "worthless" certificates that come in the mail every so often. We'll sacrifice our comfort of nice hotels for the cheap ones so we can afford to participate in the sport we love. We'll be alright with saying our dogs go to a chiropractor, yet I've yet to see one for myself. The happiness and joy we feel as we snuggle up to our dogs at the end of the day trumps all of that, and trumps that European vacation said former boss might get to enjoy every so often.
