Agility – Journey or the End Result?

Wyatt and I got another NADAC Elite Chances Q (qualifying run) this weekend.  Elite Chances is a very difficult class where you have to guide your dog from behind a piece of tape.  Your dog can be at much as 30 feet away from you and you have to train your dog to follow your direction and also discriminate between different obstacles from that distance.  After breaking a year long “drought” in August, we got 2 additional Qs recently, averaging about 50%.  It suddenly seems much easier to me and I feel much more confidently.  Of course, feeling confidence helps your performance just as not feeling confident hurts your performance.  Confidence (or lack thereof) affecting your performance creates a spiraling effect, which magnifies your success (or not) over time.

I am very happy that we seem to be much better now because I have worked on it for about 3 years.  We got our required jumpers and regular Qs years ago and only need 3 more Chance to earn Wyatt’s second agility championship (in 2 different venues CPE and NADAC).

So I noticed that in agility, I feel most happy about our process and I anticipate that getting the NATCH, while it will be really nice, may be somewhat of a let down or at least not such a big deal.  The journey has been very rewarding.  We are also finishing our basement right now and for me, for physical projects, I feel the most satisfaction with the finished product.  Perhaps it has to do with the amount of learning involved.