My handsomest and most manly of men!
Went tracking this morning with "Joan", the woman who has pushed me into committing. I managed to not burst into tears, which is the first good thing! XD I told her she needed to talk me off the ledge because I was fully ready to quit.
She laid me a 350 yard (320 meter) track that went in some wonky directions because there was, and I cannot stress this enough, zero visibility. It ended up being a blind track because we couldn't even see her flags until we were on top of them. She put an article down on the second-to-last leg with hot dogs inside it.
Kermit pulled me down the track at a trot or a run the whole time. He nailed each turn. Only one time did he go a bit wide, and that's because the wind blew the scent cone about ten feet off the track, and he pulled me back onto the track pretty quickly. He only crittered briefly by sticking his nose in a couple holes that that track led over.
After his little break at the article, where he got hot dogs, he dragged me back onto the track and finished strong at the glove. Joan was like, so why isn't he certified, again? I explained that he craps out on regulation-length tracks and we've failed certification twice, so she said that we'll go out together some more and she'll lay longer tracks so we can recreate the issue and work through it. She doesn't see any reason we can't get our TD this year.
She told me that as she was walking behind us she was thinking to herself that this was one of the most beautiful tracks she's ever seen a little dog run. She said that he's a fabulous worker and I've done a very, very good job training him, and she's really impressed that I've done all this with no support. She was like DO NOT QUIT. Then she gave me a bunch of trial advice and told me when the next few trials are and reiterated that we can get our TD this year.
So she successfully talked me off the metaphorical ledge and I no longer feel like a massive failure. Kermit ran his best track all season and had a great time. And I'm under orders to contact Joan again when I'm ready to go out during the week, so tomorrow I'll talk to my boss about taking time off.
