Two weeks ago I watched the Agility world championships in Helsinki. It has been a while. In fact the last tournament I attended was also in Helsinki, in the year 2000 and I did not live in Finland yet then. One year before that I was even competing as member of the national team of the Netherlands. That was Dortmund ’99.
One day you’re at the top, doing nothing else than train, compete, coach, organize and more, the next day you’re only taking your retired dog on forest walks, play and cuddle with it and that’s it. OK, fair is fair, we are talking about 9 years in between and it did not appen all so sudden, but it feels like yesterday that...
Where are we now? I do not have a dog to train with or compete. Myfki was extremely promising when she was very young, but things changed later on. She suddenly got fears that I can not explain. Nothing traumatic ever happened to her and we both tried to work with her, but nothing seemed to help. I do not know what’s going on in that little head of hers, but after years of trying we gave up. Her infrequent epilepsy seizures is also making us to believe that it must be an issue of the mind. She now enjoys swimming, obedience with Eeva, playful agility in the garden and since this month also playing with Yty.
There was a day that I lived with 4 shelties. Now Myfki is the only one and that is simply not enough. One can only have too few shelties, never too many! But where to get one now? In Finland it’s quite hard. One reason is that demand is so high, that litters are often already entirely “booked” before the puppies are born. And ehh...a well, I simply keep looking...
Woody was my first sheltie. I owe a lot to him. He was amazing. How else could we become Dutch national champion once, and runner up twice, or represent our country at the world championships? Woody made me to like the sports of agility and teach me to invest in your relationship in order to succeed. In order to win. Winning is good. And still we lost a lot too, but that was always my fault. Woody was king! I am also proud of some other achievements that never made it into the books. “Combination of the year” is one of those. Or Indoor Christmas champion once.
Woody catapulted my career as a trainer. I have been teaching agility now since 1996. My most memorable moments as trainer were in Switzerland and Austria several years and the establishment of my own agility club. One thing lead to another and soon I was also organizing agility competitions for the sheltie breed club. And I have to mention the Holland-Belgium tournament for minis, since that was absolute fun! Undoubtedly the most important event I created and organized together with one friend was Teams for Charity. What started as a fundraiser for the Kosovo refugee situation, grew the next year to become a four ring, weekend long agility tournament for teams. It was fun, it was extraordinary and it was also the last time we could do it. We had to cancel it the subsequent year and then I left for Finland and my friend gave up agility. I will not give up the idea though. Teams for Charity is Agility for Humanity and who knows we can do that again some day in Finland...
That friend that I just mentioned. He retired from agility. I also could have done that. Perhaps I should have after Woody got his liver problem that forced him to retire a bit too early from agility and that eventually meant his early retirement from life. In my years in Finland we first took part in competitions and I was active as trainer at my local club and one other club. Soon after Woody had to stop I was only training some groups every now and then to people that were at least still thankful. But without a dog to train yourself it starts to feel like your missing something. I do feel that now a lot and all I sometimes do is to perform as the judge at some unofficial competitions, or help at official competitions and that’s about it. So why don’t I quit? The other reasons I will keep to myself.
But then again, like I wrote earlier, I was at the world championships a couple of weeks ago and I saw again so many faces that I recognized from those days of glory and they are still there! I had a nice conversation with Ides and I ran into Kirsten, but only after I had activated that part of my brain with ancient memories again! Of course I talked a lot with some active Dutch agility runners, officials and such. And I enjoyed watching the event.
I do want a new sheltie to work with!
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