Born in April 2007 Rivi is a beautiful, talented genius of a border collie and we have had several setbacks in terms of agility such as her hormones going into overdrive, oversensitivity/reactivity (stems from hormone issues), a horrifically cut front pad, which created some sensitivity in terms of pressure or discomfort on the pad if jumping  (done whilst out on normal exercise) to the most recent one which I can only liken to stage fright.  To be honest I never really got her back to agility proper from her cut pad. And rather than exacerbate what is going on in her head, I made the decision to pull her from agility.

Despite this Rivi did achieve the title of Agility Warrant Gold and came 2nd in Adams Novice Final 2010 and had a few other wins and qualifiers, so many times so close. As well as qualifying for Championship level in both UKA and KC agility.  As I say a very beautiful and gifted border collie who I was very fortunate to be able to have.

I would love to get her back to agility there is no doubt of her talent, beauty and brains but I think the cost for me in terms of stressing all the time about whether she is OK takes the fun out of it.  And whilst I want to do well, I need to enjoy it and I need my dog to enjoy it too. So Rivi is now my running dog and helps me with keeping fit and is an awesome sofa partner. Sometimes I guess the path we want to choose and the one we end up taking can be unexpectedly different. 

Reading my blog postings of Rivi I seemed forever optimistic and I have to be content that whilst my agility dreams did not happen, she is happy and that is the most important thing. As Marc said it's 'as if the genius of Rivi is destined to be unknown.'

I really like the photo of her with me above as it was one of those precious fabulous days where she just seemed to have a great time.