Moving On

Angel - One of my favourite photos showing the joy she felt for life

There are so many things I miss about Angel. Most are only little things. The silly growling noise that Angel made when she impatiently waited for her dinner. Her favourite spot under the patio when it was treat time before I went to work. Always the first to bark when she heard me open the gate when I got home from work. If she thought a trip in the car was coming up she'd whinge and shriek in excitement. Obsessively chasing her father down the beach. Now all cherished memories.

I never would have thought that a house of four dogs would feel empty, but without her it does. I have lots of regrets and if onlys. The night we lost her it felt like the world transpired against us so that I wasn't able to protect and save her like I wanted to be able to. But with that comes the things that I know I could give her while she was with me, hopefully in some way making up for her first two years of hell. If I still lived at my old house I feel certain that she would still be with us but she loved our new house with all it's space so much and I will always smile when I remember her belting up the driveway in hot pursuit of the other dogs. Out of all my dogs I think that Sonic has missed her the most. They used to play a lot and he was very quiet for the first couple of days after she'd gone.

Agility has played a very secondary role since then. I finally loaded up Sonic's last two trials of 2009.

The first one is from ACWA's midweek trial. Sonic was totally HYPER. It was a lot more low key trial being that it was midweek and only two rings running instead of the normal four. I'd say that it felt like a normal training night for him so added to his extra enthusiasm as he is still a lot more confident at training than at a trial. He had a clear run in Masters Agility but it wasn't one of our greatest runs. The three almost off courses cost us a lot in time.... Open Agility was a lovely course and he was able to really run on. Unfortunately he went off course on the second obstacle after crossing behind me (BAD Sonic) however he was flying around, squealling as he went. Quite frankly I'd rather he run full on and make mistakes as opposed to slow and clear. It is really exciting that he is getting much more confident on the equipment.



The Doberman Club trial ended up being our last trial of the year. Once again a clear round alluded us but on the up side his obstacle performance is getting much faster on a consistent basis and he is really up and happy when in the ring. So we are still looking for an improvement in our team work on course and the handler skills but it is being a very enjoyable journey as we attempt to get there.