What a ride! A LOT happened in the last few weeks and the trip was in danger of not happening almost constantly. Poor Dennis Martinez had some health issues that were a bit concerning but seemed quite resolved (so thankful for that! Lisette Berrios-Ramírez there are no words to thank you enough) so our Sunday departure ended up being Monday evening!
Pulled into GA on Monday early morning and went to bed at 3am! Regardless, we made it to TN and though my brain didn’t seem to be able to handle the stress and actually concentrate on the first two days, it was awesome to finally make it to a National event again! Results were not necessarily great on paper, and attending such a big and charged event with young and inexperienced dogs can be quite humbling…..yes my kids have actually BEEN to trials – some of the dogs representing PR had never shown before and had an outstanding showing (I am looking at you Rosarito Martinez !) – but I had not thought about the fact that Kyber has never been CRATED at an event (post COVID, I mostly work out of my van) and he and Rebel haven’t really had to walk thru crowds to get to rings. It was insane.
I humbly apologize to all those people who Kyber tried to steal toys from or greet, I kept him as controlled as I could, but my monster did get away from me a few times and his latest trick was to try to grab a toys held in other peoples hands (smh). Rebel was terrified in one of the buildings, but overall handled it all much better than I had dreamed. It was awesome to see friends I hadnt seen in a long time, including SciFi’s Tribe specially his Buschi Martine Kopka and Nani Renee Snedecor King . My big boy got to reconnect with a bunch of relativea and mesmerize them with his wiggly ways. He also got to do some walking arpund the trial on off times, and though we can always learn more manners, he wasn’t totally hopeless 
I also got to meet Nicole Cabrera ‘s awesome new baby Spicy, who is a total crackhead! I also got to be there to watch Rafael Quiñones be the first Puerto Rican judge to judge in Cynosport and his courses were amazing! Boricua Proud!
As for results, we came home with some bling, which is insane to me considering everything. Rebel was top 10 in ALL her Team runs: 4th in Gamblers, 6th in Snooker (I went conservative and we made it thru 7!), 3rd in Jumpers (CLEAN!) and 3rd in Standard (CLEAN again!) to finish as Top Scoring Cumulative 16″ Team Dog (2nd if you count the 16″ dogs from Pairs as well!) which is crazy as there were some incredible 16″ dogs there. Our Team Smooth Moves with Kerry Stevens Keavy and Chloe Evetts Williams Cash finished 23 out of 92 Teams! Not too shabby for these youngsters – all three dogs where first timers at this event! Both Rebel and Kyber ran in Semis, but my brain was not fully there, so I did not do them justice. Kyber did get a 2nd place in 24″ Team Gamblers and 4th place in Standard (by only 0.04 competition is intense). He had some great stuff, but some bad luck. He had a BEAUTIFUL Team Jumpers run going yesterday, but literally LANDED on the potted Mums in front of the podium 
I had considered jumping him the other way (the line was not ideal and he would have been pretty much landing inside an off course tunnel), but I do work him tight on my fence at home, so I expected him to be fine. He obviously saw the podium and adjusted well for it, but neither of us considered the little plants he couldn’t see unfortunately, this caused us a disconnect that ended in a wrong course, but what an amazing Pegasus Pony he is! I am just glad he seemed unfazed and is sound. All in all, an awesome event. Looking forward to the US Open in a few weeks!!!!
Link to 4PawFlix videos:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNDK8efzjW5-qz7NtrLa0V_6nu7j-tLVC
Sheyladogs.com 
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