An emotional day

8 years ago - in the summer 2010 - the Danish dog dancers participated in a World Championship for the first time. There were 3 dogs on the team; Anja with Queeny, Helle with Doggie and myself with Whisper. We went there with high hopes and great team spirit and took everyone (including us selves) by surprise and won the title. We won a World Championship! You can see the picture in the extra. 

When Whisper retired from competition, Anja and I promised each other that one day we would once again be on the same team at a Championship. 

And then Hero came into my life and became an amazing freestyle dog, but not very good at Heelwork To Music. So I have never been able to keep my promise - not until now.....

Today we went to a team selection competition. Anja and Helle had already qualified for the European Championship in prior competitions, but Gollum needed to do well today, if we wanted to bring the old team back into the ring. I felt very pressured as we wanted it so badly!

Anja was competing before me and she was very emotional too. We talked in the morning and it took minutes before we both cried over our old dogs, old routines and happy memories. 

I was still far too emotional, when I went into the ring to compete with Gollum. I can see from the pictures that Gollum was actually working very well, but it felt awful. I wanted it too much and it messed me up completely. 

I did reward Gollum well and made sure it was good for him and then I cried from stress and was just a big mess. 

We did it though! When the results came out, Gollum had placed 4th after Sidsel, Helle and Anja, who were already qualified for the team. Gollum got the 4th place on the team for the European Championship, which means that Helle, Anja and I are going to dance for Denmark together once again! Sidsel will be there too, which is just an extra bonus. 

Hero is qualified for the freestyle team - he already was before today, so he just did a training round today in preparation for the World Championship in 3 weeks. It was a good training round though. 

Gollum also went back into the ring later on the day and did a training round with a more mentally stable handler! Gosh - what a day for the little man. He has probably never seen me that stressed before. 

So we did it. And now we need a lot of training - especially in competition-like environments to prepare for the next months' challenges. 

And now.... breath!

Emmy and the Hazyland Boys