Friday, January 29, 2010

Breaking down agility venues - OR, Dawn's attempt to Get A Grip

I know I haven't been posting much content lately. I wish I could say it's because I've been too busy doing mucho-exciting things, but seriously? It's Maine. It's winter. There's just not a whole lot going on, dogwise. Me enthusing dramatically about Elli's agility training or obsessing over Clue's puppies isn't real exciting for y'all to read about.

And MAN am I obsessing! Like --

uh, Joanna, if you're reading this, STOP. I'm not a crazy, creepy, psycho-stalker lady. Really. But I do play one on my blog!

So, you know you're obsessed when:
  • You have a folder of pictures labelled "Clue-Draco" puppies, on both your home and work computers, with copies of every. single. photo that Joanna has posted;
  • You have looked at all of the photos in said folder (again, both at home and at work) approximately 3,254,586 times each;
  • You've printed said photos out in various sizes, rotating them 2.4 degrees to the left or 5.3 degrees to the right, thinking you just might get a better idea of that puppy's shoulder angle or the length of that one's hocks - 'cuz, you know, you can tell SO much when they're a day old;
  • You've already contacted your Puppy K instructor to see when they will start an April session and to get your name on the list;
  • You've mentally rearranged the car 9 times to figure out how to accomodate both adult dogs and the puppy's crate for the trip to Nationals;
  • You have your day planner marked in weekly increments up to twelve weeks, and then monthly increments up to six months, with the 6-month date circled in red with big letters that say "Can start entering shows!";
  • You have debated the merits of this call name versus that call name with friends and family, and have taken an informal opinion poll;
  • You've moved furniture around the bedroom so the baby's crate can go there;
  • You've picked out a show lead and collar to compliment the blue merle coloring;
  • You make the rounds on Twitter, Facebook, and blogland every 10-15 minutes to see if there are any updates posted;
  • And, your inner monologue sounds roughly like, "blah blah puppy blah puppy puppy blah blah puppy puppy puppy and blah blah and PUPPPPPPPY!"

Freakin' A, Dawn! Get a damn grip, fer cryin' out loud!!

yeah. *ahem* Like I said, not such an exciting read.

But in between the quarter-hour cruises through social networking sites, I've been looking at agility regs for the various venues -- AKC, UKC, CPE, NADAC and USDAA -- and comparing them. Which actually makes enthusing dramatically over Elli's training progress A Good Thing, because the thought of not being able to compete with her, what with the being in prison and all, is the only thing keeping me from camping in a little tent on Joanna's front lawn.

So next week, I'll be devoting each day to a discussion of one of the venues. I know that there are a lot of you who already compete in one or more of these, so this will probably all be old hat to you. But hopefully some of you who are just getting into agility and looking ahead to competition will find it helpful. I know I'M learning a lot!

Monday's venue: CPE

gotta go check Facebook and Twitter now 'kay bye

3 comments:

  1. Don't feel too bad, while I was waiting for Jimmy to be old enough to come home, I'd spend every work commute trying on registered name's, endlessly. I still do it, even with him going on 3. It's like, oh, I coulda chose this one, or, oh, that would have been good....especially now that I know him much better, the possibilities are limitless!

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  2. You want sad? I keep lists of registered names that I like. I'm probably somewhere around 100 names now. Like I'm EVER going to be able to use them all. That's why I share with others who are puppy obsessed.

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  3. Have you seen my list of Flying names, I update it on the blog :-) it is all I can do not to drive Harry nuts with bugging him about the PJ babies. You are never alone.

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