Well all of my appliances for the new house arrived yesterday. Way exciting. However my excitement gave John the “great” idea that since my birthday is at the end of July, this could work as my present from him!  As nice as it is to have shiny and new, I am pretty sure he won’t get off that easy.  

 

Speaking of Christmas, today we pack up the RV and head north for the “Canada Cup” held at beautiful Royackers Farms about an hour from us. This is an awesome event and I encourage all of you to come up and give it a try. In Canada we have very few classes where competitors are encouraged to “go for it.” Our national championship is based on getting around six courses clean. Now I am not saying this to disrespect our national champions (as I have won many myself) and we have had some great ones. My point is with so much emphasis on going clean at any cost, many handlers up here end up creating a very “safe” style of handling for themselves. In my opinion, this is not nearly as much fun for the dog, the handler or the audience watching!

 

Here at Canada Cup everyone gets a chance to let their primal, competitive juices flow as it is the fastest dog and handler teams that take home the cash and a lot of it!

 

Susan and Adrian Royakkers have helped to change the face of Canadian aglity by creating this event and raising the $10,000 of prize money they give out each year. On top of it being a ton of fun, each and every competitor that enters gets an incredible prize, I

A dog enjoys the pond after her run.

A dog enjoying the pond after her run.

mean incredible!  One year I got a brand new 20′ tunnel, another year it was this way cool massively big “Budwieser” picnic table umbrella.  Add that to the over 5K (or more) in prize money that I have been able to take home over the years makes this one of my favorite trials of the year!

 

Seriously, it really is a great, great event. It is all run as a one ring trial so you get to see all of the dogs entered. Plus you get to RV or camp pretty darn close to the rings, which happens to be next to a huge big dog friendly-pond. Even though this is a

A camper at Royakers Canada Cup 2009.

A camper at Royakers Canada Cup 2009.

 big “money event,” the atmosphere is one that genuinely encourages so much fun and camaraderie amoungst competitors, I just love it. Each year we get a contingency of American competitors that join in on the fun with us all. So please, all of you, mark this on your calendars, as I do mine,  as the MUST ATTEND trial of the year.

Today I am grateful for Susan and Adrian and the generosity they demonstrate by organizing this wonderful event each year.