Celebrating the Journey: When A Sport Dog Retires 🥹
Retirement for our sport dogs is a very emotional subject! 🥹
A long time agility friend of mine, Fiona, wrote this beautiful post recently that I thought was worth sharing ❤️ It is so relatable, especially as I am on the same journey with my own dog, Ember, pictured above 🐾
I am sharing with permission from Fiona, and reading it again has made me tear up all over again! 😢
Happy retirement Carly - and well done to her and Fiona on all their amazing achievements together!
Retirement... Today was one of those bittersweet moments I wasn’t quite prepared for. ❤️ A big mix of emotions including some tears.
As I went to enter a show for the first time in a while … and realised I wasn't entering Carly's number this time...
She’s still here. She’s happy. She’s very much still her cheeky self. Acting like age is just a number. But today I realised that somewhere along the way, without us really knowing it, she retired from agility.
We never really talk about the quiet retirements.
The ones that don’t happen under bright lights, with a final run, a crowd watching, a ribbon, or a big goodbye.
Sometimes there is no “this is our last show.”
Sometimes life just gets in the way.
Three kids.... Family.... A job that I love but has me working weekends and just well life..... The endless busyness that somehow fills every moment before you even realise it.
And somewhere amongst all of that, our agility journey quietly came to an end. But as I look back today, I realise just how incredible that journey has been.
From that tiny puppy who had no idea what agility even was, to the 12-year-old girl curled up on my lap now… she has achieved more than I could ever have imagined.
The places we’ve been.
The things we’ve learnt.
The mistakes, the wins, the near misses, the ridiculous moments.
The ribbons.
The tears.
The celebrations.
The people we’ve met who I now count as family!
The memories we’ve made.
And most importantly, all the years I got to run beside her.
I think sometimes we get so caught up in chasing the next title, the next competition, the next goal, that we forget to stop and appreciate just how far we’ve already come.
So today, I’m choosing to celebrate her.
Not because she’s gone.
Not because this is goodbye.
But because she deserves to have her incredible career celebrated.
She made her way to the start line for her first run ever in a competition.
First run..... First clear.... First Win!
An incredible achievement not many dogs have.
And she never looked back.
Agility Champion, Jumpers Champion, ADX Gold, JAX Gold, SNX
And the TWO biggest achievements...!
TOP 240 dog at NZDAC twice! (for non agility folk this means she was top dog in her height category at the Nationals!)
Once in 2017 at the age of 3.
And then again in 2024 at the age of 10!
We achieved this even with me being crazy enough to travel to Wellington with a 9 month old human child solo and compete after only 2 trainings and 4 shows all that year.
I completely owe this one to my Counties DTC family (you know who you are 😘 ), Anna's Van, Maree and Tarah for getting her there and Nicola for being the best voice of reason and cheer team when the first run put the biggest doubt in my mind of what we could achieve!
My tiny puppy became my agility dog, my teammate, my teacher, my absolute pain in the arse 😂, and one of the best dogs I could ever have asked to share this sport with.
I just wish I’d realised that last run was the last run.
But maybe that’s okay.
Because perhaps the best endings aren’t the ones we know are coming.
They’re the ones we get to look back on and realise…
What an incredible run it was. ❤️🐾
