Stupid, stupid, stupid!
I feel stupid!
I got an email from the head of the BCCA (Bearded Collie Club of America) herding committee asking why, if Colton got his third herding started leg at the national, the AKC didn't recognize his title. Well, turns out, I screwed up. The third leg was under a judge we already had earned a leg under and you need legs from three different judges.
Colton is going to be 13 in March. His arthritis is getting in the way. His latest blood work shows something going wrong with his liver. He's showing signs of canine cognitive dysfunction. He doesn't really enjoy the herding work especially the outrun which is the first exercise in the herding trial.
I considered the national, which had two herding trials, his last chance to get the title. When we got the qualifying score on the first day, I didn't go back the second day for an 'insurance' leg because I was so stressed over the whole nationals thing. AND I pulled his entry from a herding trial three weeks later that I'd entered also as insurance if we didn't get the leg at the national. Since I'm such an inexperienced herding competitor, it never occurred to me that the BCCA herding committee would hire the same judge who judged a beardie-only regional not even 18 months earlier one state away! I should have been more on top of it, but I wasn't - it was definitely a novice error.
Now I'm agonizing over a decision whether or not to push Colton back into herding training for the same regional with a herding trial in April in California where I'm pretty sure he can get a fourth leg under a third judge, or to just know in my heart that he earned the title regardless of whether or not the AKC will award it. He doesn't care. The title is for me and for his breeder (who hasn't been speaking to me for three years anyway!) The BCCA won't award any more versatility titles to him for achievements in a fifth area of performance competition since he doesn't have a championship in any of them nor a BIS. So it's pretty much about my bruised ego and disappointment over not getting the external validation for something I know we have done well.
I've got an issue with external validation. I guess the mature thing to do is acknowledge that this is *my* issue and love my dog the way he is without the title certificate from the AKC. But it's hard.