What a Ride!

My favorite scene from Parenthood.

[Gil has been complaining about his complicated life; Grandma wanders into the room]
Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Gil: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!
Gil: What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

This weekend was another roller coaster ride for me. Shane and I went to San Marcos Friday night to work on our contacts and start line at the TAG Fund Raiser for the Humane Society. Shane did great. I was psyched and ready for the show.

Saturday, our first run was Touch N Go, which we've never qualified in. Nailed the dog walk contact. I think I said YES about 10 times.
Next run was Weavers. Sweet. Then on to Regular 1, and we nailed the dog walk again! All bars up!

Regular 2 - nailed the dog walk! Three for three! I could not believe it. We knocked a bar, but who cares. Three 1st place qualifying runs and a new title: NAC. We were approaching the top of a wild ride on the roller coaster. Didn't expect that we'd start the downward run so soon.

Jumpers. We were outside waiting for our turn. Next to us were a border collie and a sheltie mix. They happened to get a little too close to each other and there was a little bit of a noisy lunging exhibition. I was treating Shane and saying Yes like there was no tomorrow. He did great, so I didn't think about it any more. Jumpers was unremarkable. Knocked a few bars, but after the last jump, Shane just took off from me. He charged toward the dog waiting at the Start Line and I just froze. Luckily, he just ran by and turned to come right back to me. It didn't occur to me until my ride home that the dog waiting at the start line was the border collie who exhibited a bit of aggression right next to Shane. He was just going over there to check that dog out or tell her that she had better not mess with him. At any rate, I was pretty rattled, so we scratched the last run and drove home.

Sunday I chose to ride the Merry-Go-Round. I left my stuff there so I could go shopping at the outlet mall and pick it up on my way home, or we could go and do tunnelers. In my stupor from lack of sleep, I decided to go to the show. Got there just in time to walk Regular. Warmed Shane up and headed for the Start Line. I got really bad vibes. I was not feeling right and Shane looked pretty spooked. he was looking left and right at dogs and noises. His ears were straight up. Not sure I would have the strength to deal with a bad situation. Left the Start Line and scratched the run. Chickened out. I decided to just do tunnelers and go home.

Tunnelers was fantastic. Shane was flying. It just all clicked and it felt great. At the finish, I turned Shane and directed him through another tunnel and caught him as he came out.
The crowd cheered, which meant so much to me. I got a lot of hugs and helpful positive comments all weekend. People are truly hoping Shane will triumph someday. We have a lot of work to do and this weekend gave me more strength to continue. Thank you all so much!