From Disappointment to Excitement: How I Found Excitement in "Failure"

Crufts was epic. The excitement. The buzz. The difficulty.

I walked into that ring with three clear goals:

1. For Gracie: Feel joyful, motivated, and like the most special dog in the universe (because she is to me)
2. For me: Stay present and connected to Gracie, even when the adrenaline hit. Feel full of belief and trust in myself and in her.
3. For our partnership: Deliver the same standard of training in the ring that we'd achieved in training.

I achieved the first two.

The third? No.

Where It Fell Apart (And Why That Matters)

Gracie missed the sit in heelwork—the final position after a long round. I think I didn't give it in the right tone. But more importantly, I knew the real issue: she wasn't expecting the sit at the end. In IGP, her other sport, the sit comes first. This was a training gap I hadn't addressed.

But that wasn't the moment that broke me.

I just recognised in the moment the error but it wasn’t a problem, she just doesn’t normally fail at ASSD so I knew this was in my cue error. 

Her retrieve and DC were just lovely.

But the sendaway was last.

This was the demon we'd fought before—two years ago at Crufts. Gracie has a historical pattern: when the sendaway is the last exercise and she has to run past her rewards to get to it, she struggles.

And there it was again.

I hadn't trained the sendaway as the final exercise with her running last the exit (which is where the rewards were). Instead, I'd trained it with rewards at the sendaway. So when Gracie arrived at Crufts for the third time, she knew the reward wouldn't be there. She knew the pattern.

What happened next was a standoff.

She ran halfway. Stopped. Stared at me. Waiting me out. Trying to make me click her to get her reward. I waited for her to find the back marker.

I gave in first.

I gave her the down command—the command that signals completion. The marks were lost. The exercise wasn't completed correctly.

The Physical Collapse

The disappointment hit like a wave right there in the ring.

My heart sank. A sickening feeling in my throat. Heaviness. My head went foggy. I couldn't comprehend what had happened. I couldn't even hear the steward's voice.

This is the moment most people talk about. The shame spiral. The self-blame. The "I failed" narrative that takes over.

But something shifted in me, right there in the ring.

The Choice in the Present Moment

After the whoosh of disappointment faded, I had a choice.

I could stay in the failure. Or I could be in the present.

The present was the call-up from sendaway. Which was beautiful. The present was Gracie's heelwork at the end of the sendaway. Perfect.

So I clicked her. The test finished.

And my heart swelled with pride and love for Gracie.

She had done so much beautiful work. She had committed to the tough, long stretches of heelwork, even when her mum was struggling with the handling. She had done a beautiful distance control and retrieve exercise.

And then I felt it: the fun of it.

Little Gracie. An Aussie. So noisy. So full of her own opinions. So full of her own terms and conditions. So intelligent. Such a sense of humour. And little Gracie who never was going to work just to please me. She works to please herself. Because she enjoys it. Because she loves the huge jackpot rewards at the end of difficult rounds. That’s why she LOVES competing at high level. She gets high level rewards.

And little Gracie who, just like people do, had got distracted thinking of her yummy hamburgers, steaks, the beautiful pan-fried liver and the raw meat all waiting for her. And it had just been too much for this little dog.

I chuckled.

If I had a reward of a million pounds waiting for me, but I had to ignore the money on the way there, I might also get distracted.

Why This Dog Is Extraordinary

I just adore this Aussie.

She's a reminder of why she was the only non-Collie in the female champs. Aussies are bright. They do what they want to do. They're not always biddable. And this made me laugh, because it's a very normal, very human response.

Right then, Gracie became even more lovable to me—if I'd have thought that possible.

This little dog has won more challenge certificates than any other Aussie. She's achieved world records for the breed. She competes at the top level, concurrently, in two sports. She's phenomenal.

And also she's opinionated. She's loud. She's just true to herself.

And the whole point of "us" as a team is that I allow her to be herself. In fact, I adore her for being herself. And I allow me to be myself.

We're not a usual team. We don't do things the same way others do. We don't do that on purpose. We're just a bit strange. And I love that about Gracie. And I've learned to accept it about myself.

The Unexpected Feeling: Elation

So I felt the euphoric, huge feeling of success.

Why? Because little Gracie and I had been true to ourselves.

We had genuinely felt like winners even when we'd failed.

We were surrounded by the love and support of friends. We had had a blast together. And we had been true to ourselves.

What a win.

But then came the surprise.

The Scientist Mindset Awakens

In the aftermath of the round, I felt the familiar wave of disappointment run through me. The heaviness. But I was very surprised by what came next.

Something I haven't felt in a little while.

Maybe because 2025 was so successful, it's actually been really hard to be motivated to train Gracie. She'd achieved all her goals. Getting ready for Crufts didn't feel motivating. In my eyes, she'd done it all.

But suddenly, just sat on the bench an hour or so after our round, I felt inspired.

I felt motivated.

I saw where there was a gap in my training.

And I love a training gap. My true love is training. And a trained dog isn’t so interesting to me, it’s just a question of ‘showing it off’. But a training gap, well that is exciting!

It means I can go out and work on this. I now know what the weakness was. I now feel excited to keep working on my connection, my relationship, my training. And to enter the obedience season of 2026 with a sense of excited curiosity.

I wonder if my ideas for training this particular thing will work?

I wonder how much better we can get?

I wonder if Gracie will start to feel bored or if I can keep inspiring and motivating her?

I wonder if I can be resilient and motivate myself?

I wonder how much better I can be as a trainer?

It's with this sense of scientist-like investigator that I enter 2026 obedience season.

The Paradox That Changes Everything

And here's the thing: I would not be fortunate enough to have this feeling of elation and excitement if all had gone to plan.

I've experienced real lulls every time I've achieved my goals.

I felt quite disheartened after Shanti became a champion. And again when Gracie did. And after Gracie's huge success at the world championships, and coming home and winning the obedience championships—well, I haven't felt very motivated to train her.

The paradox is this:

Success without a gap to fill creates stagnation.

Failure that reveals a gap creates elation.

Because now I know what to work on. Now I have direction. Now I have curiosity. Now I have wonder.

Now I have a reason to show up every single day, not because I'm chasing a title or a placement, but because I'm investigating. I'm experimenting. I'm discovering what's possible.

Entering 2026 as a Scientist, Not a Victim

This is the shift that changes everything.

I could have left that ring thinking: "I failed. I'm not good enough. I should have trained differently. Gracie let me down."

Instead, I left thinking: "Interesting. The sendaway as a final exercise with rewards nearby is a gap. What training protocols will close that gap? How can I build Gracie's confidence in this scenario? What does she need from me?"

That's not failure.

That's data.

And data is what scientists use to build better experiments.

So as I enter 2026, I'm not entering with shame or disappointment. I'm entering with:

• Curiosity: What will work?
• Wonder: How much better can we become?
• Excitement: What will I discover about myself as a trainer?
• Resilience: Can I stay motivated even when the goal is already achieved?
• Love: For this opinionated, brilliant, true-to-herself Aussie who reminds me every single day why I do this.

The failure at Crufts wasn't a setback.

It was an invitation.

And I'm saying yes.