Publisher’s message: Buzz finishes 51st in the country

I’m sorry that it’s taken me so long to let everyone know how Buzz did at the 5^th Annual Rally National Championships.

It’s been awhile since I’ve taken any time off, and I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of things.

That said, mission accomplished.

As I told readers before Buzz and I headed to Wilmington, Ohio, this year was my redemption tour at this competition.

So I headed out with just two goals – the first was that I didn’t mess up any signs as I did last year; the second was to finish in the top 50.

I am delighted to report that I didn’t make a mistake in any of the four rings in which we competed, and, we finished 51^st in the country.

We were tied for 50^th with another dog-and-handler team with a total of 377 points out of a possible 400 points, but were dropped down one place on time.

I know that finishing 51^st in the country probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to most of you, but we were competing against many of the best dogs in the country.

I’m thrilled.

And very proud of Buzz.

He handled the pressure of a big venue, TV cameras, close to 500 other dogs and several days’ in a hotel where we had to ride elevators up to the third floor and back down to the ground floor over and over and over.

Did I mention that Buzz had never ridden in an elevator before?

We started off with a 96 points out of a possible 100 points in the first ring before heading to the second ring where exhibitors who had already shown there warned us that the judging was very tough and a lot of dogs were getting knocked out of the running early.

And … so did we. Smile.

Buzz had a little oops that lost us 10 points and a few other little missteps, and we finished that ring with an 85. Sigh.

But, with two more rings to go, I was determined to finish with a flourish.

In ring three, we scored a 97 and in the last ring, we scored a 99, saving our best score for last.

Quite the wonderful finish.

I vowed to go and have a good time and did just that. Met lots of people, reconnected with people I’d met the year before and stayed in the moment.

I wasn’t as nervous as I was the previous year and Buzz handled things a lot better, too.

And this could be our last National Championship as I’ve pretty much ruled out going next year – even though we’ve already qualified. With Buzz’s health scare, the prospect of doing this again dimmed.

In 2019, the competition takes place in March in Tulsa. It’s a long drive during tornado season in Oklahoma, but looking back on this year and the progress we made, I might reconsider.

There’s plenty of time to make a final decision.

We are headed to Syracuse, NY in September for the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever Nationals and there are a few shows I enjoy this fall. I’ll see how his health holds up and whether I’m up for an 800-plus mile one-way trip.

Third time’s a charm?