Just in case you’ve been living under a rock, the University of Iowa has fired yet another men’s basketball coach. This is the fifth coach to be shown the door at Iowa in approximately 25 years, not that I’m keeping track. Heck, I graduated from Iowa State University so University of Iowa basketball is interesting only in the respect that the school is 20 miles down the road and quite frankly, you can’t get away from Hawkeye mania in this part of the state.
Let’s see, first there was Lute Olson, then George Raveling, Tom Davis and son Keno Davis, then Steve Alford. Now Todd Lickliter has gotten the boot. So long, farewell.
The reason? The team wasn’t winning enough. Ticket sales were down. Attendance at games was down. Oh yeah, and the recent school record 22-loss season. Guess that sucked. The message is clear: if you don’t win, you're worthless.
I’m writing about this only because it is in such sharp contrast to the way dog people define “winning.”
When we get a puppy, we’re filled with optimism. Surely, this will be our ultimate OTCh. or MACH dog, the brilliant, bombproof dog we’ve waited for all our lives. This will be the perfect puppy we don’t screw up. We will do everything right with this puppy: the right toys, the right food, the right training methods, the right instructors, the right everything.
Time passes. The puppy grows into a dog and takes our dreams with him. Some dreams become reality, others not. Goals are set, pursued, achieved, revised or abandoned. We laugh and love and cry and learn. We go places and discover things along the journey we never could have imagined.
Ten years down the road, we look at our puppy and see gray hair on his muzzle and a little stiffness in his gait and realize, the run is over. And you know what? You don’t give a damn about what scores or titles you won or didn’t win. You wouldn’t trade the last 10 years for the world and if you could go back and do it all over again, you would in an instant.
That’s the difference between our dogs and college basketball. Handlers don’t fire their dog because he isn’t winning. Even when the wheels fall off, 99 percent of us keep on training, no matter what gets recorded in the judge’s book on the weekend. We train harder. We re-train. We get help from friends. We try new ideas. We measure success by personal bests, not in a win/loss column. We get to define our own “winning season.” That’s why I love obedience and agility so much. There are so many different ways to win.
Enjoy March Madness. Hope your brackets all turn out well.
Today, I am thankful to have agility trials to look forward to this weekend. The weather sounds a bit questionable but that’s March in Iowa. Both parking and crating at these trials tend to be cold, damp, muddy and cramped so Jamie is going to stay home with the Farmer while Phoenix and I have a one-on-one weekend.
Another terrific blog post, Melinda! This June it will be 10 years since we adopted Lucy. I am so grateful that she is still healthy, happy, and wanting to play. But I know we aren't going to be able to do this forever, and every run and every training session are precious. We have accomplished more in agility than I'd ever dreamed possible for either of us, while some of my other dreams will probably not be met. But I wouldn't have missed a minute of our time together for anything. Sometime down the road, I'll be scouring the shelters for another dog as much like her as I can find.
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