I don’t really understand what happened yesterday on the competition ground but my dream came true! We did it!
Ruda got her third excellent in obedience class 3 and the title of Swedish Obedience Champion!
And what a fantastic performance it was! Not only has she gained 293 points of 320 possible but she was best of all the competitors, and there was 17 of them!!!
At the age of 10 years she ruled out the bunch of young Border Collies that usually take the highest scores!
But the most important thing is that she performed with joy! She was happy between the exercises with my verbal rewards, jumped like a puppy and smiled! Yes, dogs can smile!
And, of course, I did not make any mistakes myself. As I got the last starting number I was so exhausted of waiting that I couldn’t feel any stress anymore.
And the weather was on our side too, cloudy but no rain, just perfect!
Oh, I can’t express how happy and proud I am! Of both of us!
Last year I was about to give up trying. I started to doubt it was possible for us to achieve the goal. On the other hand, knowing how good she was I just couldn’t let it go without giving it one more chance. So I tried again in May and she got her second excellent which cheered me up enormously!
Now with just one more needed I had to give it a try! And the result speaks for itself! Finally she showed the best of her on competition!
I’m so happy I didn’t give up on her and that we had that moment of triumph after hundreds of hours spent on the training ground!
So now Ruda has become a pensioner like me, an active one, like myself. She loves training so we will continue doing some things but avoiding physically demanding exercises, remembering that she is an old lady after all!
And now I can finally focus more on her daughter preparing her for class 2 competition. Would be nice to leave class 2 behind us during this season.
Yeah, let’s see if I’ll manage to fulfill this plan as well!