This morning while enjoying the morning waves at the beach in Galveston to what did my joyful eyes see but three beautiful Aussies making their way to me! I met “Trig” who is a tri-colored champion in confirmation; “Bailey” who is a Blue Merle ranked #35 in the world for Frisbee catching and Storm who is another blue merle and I believe has championships of his own in agility. For the life of me, I cannot remember their very nice human momma’s name (Kristen?) but she was very nice and spent a good amount of time telling me about her dogs and answering all my Aussie questions. Her female, Trig, is the champion in confirmation but she could jump straight up vertically and make all kinds of twist and turns to catch a Frisbee while playing at the beach. Trig usually doesn’t get to play Frisbee because they want to protect her from harm, but she sure did get to have some fun today–which was fun to watch!

You know that I was in dog heaven with all these guys running around ready to play and so well trained. I’m just ignorant enough about what makes an Australian Shepherd champion that these guys reminded me of P-Paul a lot! All of this made me think of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Outliers” about what enables some people to be such winners. In Gladwell’s synopsis, sometimes it really does boil down to the luck of the draw and being born into the right place at the right time. Of course I realize that with dogs it boils down to genetics but I also believe being born into the right environment or at least raised there can make a difference.

Even though I certainly don’t have a champion Aussie at home, I do have a guy with important qualities that I enjoy like paying attention, alertness, great temperament and the love of fun. I saw those same qualities exhibited in Bailey, Trig and Storm. Just gives me a little bit more to ponder in regards to the importance of what we bring to the table as humans and how we make the most out of what we have.

I wonder what Bill Gates or Steven Jobs are like when they are allowed to just run free at the sea shore. And how many people are out there with their same qualities but haven’t found their niche yet in which to express it?

Be willing to jump for the twirling Frisbee no matter how many twists it takes….