Competition

Humans are a competitive bunch; not all but many.  No matter what sport or activity you are involved with there is bound to be a competitive direction for it.  Canine competition is thriving; whether you are into conformation, agility, flyball, frisbee, hunting or whatever, you can compete.  Many, many, many years ago I was into conformation showing; I have to say that I loved it, but much of what I loved was the time spent with dogs.  I had no dogs of my own when I started and the chance to spend whole weekends with dogs was amazing.  Once I had my own dogs and continued to show it lost its luster pretty quickly.  It took up too much time when I had little ones at home, the grooming, the waiting...........oh the waiting.

Over the years I've dabbled in several competitive aspects of canine performance.  Approximately 7-10 years  ago when Tilley was in her prime, she was pretty amazing as far as disc dogs go.  I have no doubt that she could have gone far in the freestyle division.  My issue with the whole competition aspect of sports was the waiting; I hated it.  I don't wait in line for my own things; I'm just not a fan of waiting for much of anything.  I hate lines, I am not a fan of crowds but it is mostly the waiting around that I hate.  I remember attending one frisbee event, the registration was early in the morning and once signed up you pulled up a seat and waited.

We waited and waited; Tilley and I watched all the other dogs playing frisbee.  She was dying to catch, all she wanted to do was to catch the frisbee.  As I sat there waiting our turn to strut our stuff I thought to myself; "I could be in the park right now throwing the frisbee for Tilley for an hour.  It was then that I realized that I am not the competitive type; meaning that I don't want to participate in "official" competition.  I happen to be a very competitive person but my hate of waiting around outweighs my desire to compete.

I definitely understand the desire to compete and kudos to those who do compete.  You have a great deal more patience for waiting around than I do.  But just as all dogs are different so too are we humans; what one person may love doing another may hate.  I have amazing patience for other things like watching dog behavior, waiting for a certain behavior, training, shooting etc.;  it's just the waiting idly for my turn that I have no patience for.   I enjoy travelling; but then again I hate the waiting, I could go crazy waiting.  Waiting to get through the lines, waiting to get on the plane, waiting at the stop over, waiting for luggage, I hate it.   That was one factor that I loved about driving across country, it certainly took much longer but there was no waiting in lines.

I am looking at Rally right now but think that I may run into the same "waiting" issue. I also want to do Dock Diving with Elsa; that is once she gets her water legs.  I have attended a great number of Dock Diving events and they are typically casual and many have a side pool where the dogs can play and practice their stuff.   Whether or not you decide to compete or not in whatever sport or activity you enjoy with your dog; it all comes down to drive and patience.  I have the drive but do not possess the patience to wait around.