You may remember Canadian OneMind Dogs member Rae Staseson and her awesome Corgis from our earlier blog post “If you can dream it, you can do it”. Rae started competing in agility in 2016 and has had a truly inspiring journey with her Pembroke Welsh Corgis since then.
We caught up with Rae again recently after she took part in the UKI nationals despite only recently recovering from injury! Rae said “I had a serious foot injury in May 2018 that put me in an air cast for 14 weeks. I was able to do some limited training, but for the most part my dogs were just in a fitness program.”
Rae continued to study online with OneMind Dogs during her down time and she was determined not to let the injury slow her down! “I had already qualified for the Canada Cup (UKI Nationals) which would be held in September 2018 with one of my dogs, and entered the other one in all the last chance qualifiers etc. I was deemed 'fit' to compete in early September and decided to go, and it was an amazing experience! To be able to watch so many impressive teams, and many national team members compete was worth the trip alone!”
Great results
Rae and her dogs went on to achieve some amazing results “My boy Cody and I managed to get around several of the courses without being eliminated. To be honest, this was my goal for the UKI Nationals, and both dogs did that for me. Cody ended up winning his height division at the Nationals, we had barely any competition, but we still had to get around the courses, and it was only my third UKI event. I was very pleased, and again felt that the opportunity to be running at a more difficult level than I am used to was a fabulous experience, and we worked on our connection, and I was trying to stay my best to stay ahead.”
Towards new challenges
Rae is looking forward to the rest of the competition season and continuing her training online “Nationals was the first time I had actually run full out in months because of my foot, so I was rather tentative at the start. We competed at the Open and then the next weekend we competed at a local trial, and I was very pleased with how we were managing. Small steps, sometimes big steps, sometimes really fast steps that were not so well timed, but we are definitely improving! I just need to trust more and stay in front! Thanks OneMind Dogs for lots of excellent training tips, videos, and a supportive community.”
