Remember when I went to CanAm in 2010? That trip was very memorable. The moral of that story was don't take a 5 month old baby most of the way across the country unless you are A) with the other parent of the child or B) able to sit next to the child. I listened to lots of crying that I was unable to do anything about, which was basically torture for me. On the other hand, when Finley wasn't crying, which was actually most of the time...the road trip was awesome. It was relaxing and beautiful and a special treat to go and run Ezri and Indigo with my Canine Mutiny friends!
Ben and I decided to go back this year, but since Ben would basically fail out of veterinary school if he missed Thursday or Monday, he decided to skip it..sort of at the last minute. Joe decided he also wouldn't go, so we canceled our van rental and Sue and I decided to take my small SUV. We did have enough time before CanAm to make sure Dave was comfortable running Indigo and that I could run Goose. Indigo will run for anyone and is easy to pass and Goose is..well..he means well.
Sue and I loaded up Pax, Indigo, Goose, Stingray and Mustang along with crates, flyball gear, food, cooler etc. The car was very full! We left on Tuesday afternoon, so that we would have plenty of time to get there and no long days of driving. The drive there was very uneventful and we got pretty good at unpacking and repacking. We got there on Thursday afternoon and just hung out and took it easy that night. We decided (unlike many of the other teams racing for the CanAm) to run our dogs on Friday. They are in really good physical condition and are used to a lot more running that we had planned for them. I'm really happy we chose to do that because they did not run well on Friday and had that been Saturday (the day that determines if you make it to the CanAm), we wouldn't have made it!
Pax ran pretty well in his very first race on Friday and then not so great for the rest of the weekend. He will be taking a break until the Spring for some retraining and his performance at CanAm shows that he really needs it! So for Indigo and Goose's team we didn't really have a plan going into Saturday. We just ran the best we could and tried to win races, but still push for a good time. We didn't expect to make it into the finals with so many teams running 15.5 and below lately. We were very pleasantly surprised with our times on Saturday. We ran right around 16.0 and below and our 15.7 ended up putting us in the 3rd seed going into the CanAm. So, Canine Mutiny and 7 other teams accepted spots for the CanAm on Sunday.
Our first race was against Rocket Relay's B team. We won that race, but it wasn't easy and ended up being decided by an awesome rerun by Stingray, our height dog! That put us in a position to be racing Rocket Relay's A team for the next elimination. They are the team that won last year, so we knew we would have a hard time beating them. We took them to 4 heats and lost. This put Rocket Relay and Spring Loaded as the two teams racing for first and second place and us and Animal Inn racing for third and forth place.
Eventhough we lost one race, we were still excited to race for third place! The race started out pretty messy. I unfortunately had to rerun Goose in an earlier race against Rocket Relay and between that and all the cheering and yelling, he got a case of the reruns. Stingray needed to rerun and everyone was yelling "GO GO GO". Well of course Goose thought they were talking to him, so he also reran at the same time. She actually would have run clean if she didn't have a big border collie running full speed at her, which made her drop her ball. Ugh GOOSE! By the time we were on the 5th heat that would decide the race, I was fully aware that Goose was out of his mind. We ran that heat clean and as I saw Indigo in 4th come across the finish just barely before the other dog, I knew we won it. At that same moment, my very confused Goose thought again that with all the cheering, he should probably go run again. This time I was prepared and there was not a chance I was going to let him lose this race for us. So clearly the best thing to do was to DIVE for him just as he was fully accelerating away from me. My arm was fully extended as I flew and ended up grabbing him by the tip of his tail and stopping him (he has an appointment at the chiropractor already). We won the race by very little! No one has ever been as excited for third place as we were. I got up and tried to give everyone high-fives, but by arm wouldn't move!
I somehow managed to put Indigo and Goose away in their xpen and go to watch the Spring Loaded vs Rocket Relay race. And then the pain set in. It was, by far the most excrutiating pain I've ever experienced. It was like being eletrocuted with every slight motion of my arm. I was so freaked out that I couldn't move it and in so much pain that I lost it. My amazing teammates and flyball friends helped me with everything and I went to the emergency room. I got xrays, which probably sounded like I was being tortured because I was literally screaming as I was forced to put my arm in the most incredibly painful positions. Anyway, nothing was broken so they gave me some pain meds and sent me on my way. I managed to make it home because of my awesome teammates, especially Sue. It turns out I have a rotater cuff injury and have just started a minimum of 6 weeks of physical therapy. Oh yeah and Goose bit me in the face on Saturday at some point as well.
My second CanAm was certainly an experience I will always remember. It was so much fun and exciting and so very painful. Although, I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to go back!
