Well I have really been dragging out the report on the WAO! Gosh I hope I get all my details correct as I am starting to forget.
Saturday was a little better for us! This Pentathlon Jumping was another of my favorite runs. Imagine that? It is amazing how my clear runs are my favorite.
Zen came 2nd in that class with a fantastic time!
On Saturday we had the second part of the games classes: Gamblers. Now Zen is not a great Gamblers dog by any stretch of the imagination! It is not something we train although something I would like to train in the future with other dogs. Zen, at 8 years old, is not going to suddenly start being able to work away from me. But I knew that if we could accumulate enough points in the opening we had a chance.
Well she did it. We came 4th in the Gamblers which put us 3rd (BRONZE MEDAL) for the Overall Games classes. That's my girl! My goal was to come away from this weekend with a medal and we did it. I was starting to let go of my disappointment from the previous day.
At the end of Saturday the English team had 3 overall medals. Gold, Silver and Bronze!
On Sunday we had the Pentathlon speedstakes which was the final run for the Pentathlon. I knew we had no chance at a medal in the Overall Pentathlon so I would just be running the speedstakes for a class placement. I really enjoyed this course and I thought Zen ran it well. After the turn off the aframe into the tunnel I felt something wrong with Zen. It may not look like it on the video but I was surprised that Zen did not beat me out of the tunnel to the next jump. I felt as if something happened in the tunnel but was not sure.
Zen came 2nd in that run! If you listen closely you can hear Leah yelling my motto for this competition. Small fast kick yer ass!
After her run while walking her to cool down I just felt something was wrong with her gait but I thought I was over-reacting. I walked her around and finally put her away to rest and tried to forget about it. Unfortunately when I went back an hour later to take her out for prize giving she was lame on her front leg.....I was devastated and just wanted to pack her up and take her home.
Thank God that we had Tace A. available to treat our dogs for any injuries and Peter Van D.available as our vet. Both Tace and Peter were so helpful and Zen was treated immediately. She had a injury to her right wrist so we started icing and metacam right away. I was nearly in tears as I could not believe that Zen was in pain after just running her little heart out for me... This was my dog who has never in 8 years been injured in agility. And now she gets an injury in her last big event! Was she telling me it was good that she will be retired or that she was not happy about this retirement malarkey?
This photo was not taken during that run but at our official practice on the Thursday. Could she have hurt her wrist coming out of that tunnel and then aggravated it turning into the tunnel on that last run?
Now the next run of the day was the Team Pentathlon Relay. We had the greatest team lined up for that run. All four of them could handle the pressure of a team relay that would decide if our team came away with Team GOLD.
Sometime during that morning I had realized (doh!) that Zen was possibly going to get a TEAM GOLD medal! OMG what a way to end her career. I put the pressure on Lee and Jo and told them they were going to win this team relay for Zen! And you know what? They did it!!! Dave and Rusty, Gary and Ellie, Jo and Bitzy, Lee and Bonnie ran that Team Relay with grace under pressure and won! This put our team as OVERALL GOLD! Zen finally got her Gold medal!
Thanks to the entire TEAM ENGLAND for being great competitors and teammates.
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