AKC Competitions You'll Enjoy

During an AKC sporting dog competition a young girl was tugging on her trusty yellow Labrador. She wasn’t there to watch. She wanted to compete with the adults. The rumor was she had never entered an AKC competition prior to that day.

I learned later she had begged her parents to go, and they reluctantly agreed to give it a try. But not until the girl had performed months of training to get her dog to retrieve on command.

When the day arrived she was ready to take center stage. It was her first Junior level AKC sporting event. It’s a test strictly for retrievers doing what they do best, which is fetching something and bringing it back to the owner.

Like the adults in attendance everyone was a little nerve-wracked. She was probably petrified inside, but it never showed. She appeared to be full of joy, but not foolhardy. She was focused. But you could tell she was sooo excited to be there.

My wife and I watched from a distance as she readied for the test. Rehearsing her training off by herself, away from the crowd. One foot after another, slowly she walked her dog to the judge’s table as they called her competition number. She led her dog near the water's edge, to an official starting line where the dog must heel by the owner’s side.

She looked out at the terrain in front of her, both of them appeared steady as an old oak. Like they had done this a million times before.

She glanced down at her dog. The dog looked up. She looked back at her parents. The dog was ready to go to work and so was she. 

The girl was silhouetted against the backdrop of hills. She studied the water where the retriever had to fetch a mark, thrown in the water by a field assistant. Her dog inched forward when he saw the mark make a splash. But the dog did not creep past the young girl. When the judge signaled her to release her dog the girl softly called the dog's name. The dog flew into the pond.

It was a 100 yard dash to the fall of the mark, and the dog swam on a straight line without a struggle as the girl calmly watched from shore. The dog plunked the mark up in its mouth. She blew her “come in” whistle, a command to bring the mark back to her at heel position.

She smiled when the dog turned her way. In no time the dog was by her side.

She was loving every minute of the day, like it was the most fantastic thing she had ever done with the dog. She glanced at her parents in the crowd again. They signaled their approval.

Then the final test of the day got underway. She proceeded to repeat the same skills she and her dog had learned, much to the delight of those watching from the sidelines. When the dog successfully completely the test, the crowd burst into applause.

The girl’s confidence had grown. She and her dog never faltered. At the close of the event, her scores were high enough to earn the coveted AKC qualifying ribbon, which she shyly accepted from committee.  

Moral of the story: In competitions when you get nervous and everything is going wrong try channeling your "inner child" and learn how to let go of those adult pressures we put on ourselves. Pressure is often self-induced. If you learn to enjoy an AKC competition you and the dog will succeed. When you are having fun there is no word like failure.