What a great 5 days I had at USDAA Cynosport in Murfreesboro, Tennessee!!! From crating with a good friend, Mary Metelko (who now lives in Murfreesboro) to teaming with good friends Kathy Mazzola and Brenda Kelly, it couldn’t have been more fun.

With approximately 160 dogs in his jump height, almost 11-year-old Senna finished in the top 10% in all his team classes. Kathy & I chuckled at how Handsome and Senna had similar times and points in each of their classes. Since we were in 37th Place on Friday night, we didn’t expect to move up enough to make it to the top 24 teams that got to go to PVP Relay on Saturday night. Kathy had already gone back to her hotel, and I was just returning to the show site for the Veterans Showcase when Kathy called to tell me our team, High Speed, had moved up to 16th Place and we were going to be in the PVP Relay after all!!! Although we didn’t place in the top 8 teams after the Relay, it was so much fun just getting to run. All the Texas folks in attendance were cheering us on.

Braedan finished in the top 15% of his team classes (that consisted of approximately 360 dogs in his jump height). Had I not caused Braedan to knock a bar in Steeplechase Semi-Finals, he would have been in 25th Place (still not quite fast enough to make the cutoff for the Finals, but pretty danged awesome to me.  And an indecision on my part in the Grand Prix Semi-Finals caused Braedan to spin and thus cost us time that might have put us in the Finals for that class. I’m extremely proud that Braedan did not “E” (i.e., have an off-course) in any of his team or tournament classes during the course of the four days of competition.

Not to be outdone, Cameron (who just turned 12 years old at the beginning of October) got to play in Veterans. I certainly didn’t expect anything to come of his runs, so I was thrilled when he finished in 2nd Place and got to run in the Veterans Showcase on Saturday evening.

Going to Cynosport last year (for the first time in several years) made me realize I had a lot of work to do, and it motivated me to push myself and my dogs to run even harder to get ready for this year’s event. Although I swore I had no intention of going to Sacramento, CA for the 2014 Cynosport, I find myself once again motivated to do just that.