So, a couple parts of this are a hot mess, as they say, but there’s also some amazing, good, stuff happening in this run.

First of all, when I get to the start line, I got no dog*. I had a dog when I went into the ring, I remember being surprised that I had lost him. He wouldn’t do his start line tricks. You can see me take his collar and do the “eager restraint” game – “Are you ready? Reaaaady, reaaaadyyy, REAAADY!” – and take off running in hopes of having a revved up dog out there chasing me. Between obstacles seven and eight I do front cross – a move to put Chico on my other side while keeping my eye on him. The keep the connection part went great, but my path – not so much. I placed myself at just about exactly where he needed to be to take off for the jump. But Chico clears the bar; slicing across the jump at an angle that makes it into a broad jump width from a simple single bar. And everyone cheers, and I say “Oh my God, Oh my God” for about six seconds, and if I hadn’t been so excited that I got rather far ahead of Chico in the poles he probably would have gotten them, but we are starting to build speed so we keep going, and he drops a bar ’cause he’s in a hurry, and someone says “Look at him go!” and he misses the last jump, a spread (bad camera angle for seeing that), and back jumps it and the crowd goes wild. Sometimes the worst runs are the best runs.

* When I say this, I mean we have no connection. Our start line ritual is roll over and gimme two paws (up on his hind feet, reaching with both front paws to slap my outstretched palm). If Chico won’t do those two tricks, we’ve got a problem, he isn’t focused on me or the jumps, he’s lost in his head, worried about some dog outside the ring or something.