three years of training

Ive been involved with dogs for about the last 12 years. I started out rescueing mixed breeds at shelters and thats where i found my first flat coated retreiver(Jessie James). he was a severe epileptic and the love of my life. I only had my guy for a little over 2 years, when he died in a seizure. that is when my husband found a wonderful breeder and got me my Felon. wanting to enjoy every minute i could with my boy sent me to various obediance classes and just before he turned a year i took him to agility. the first class we went to was in a horse barn, and was okay, but the teacher didnt move along very fast. then he had a fall on the on ramp to the dogwalk because it was slanted slightly in the dirt, that was a year and a half before he would get back on it every time. He didnt start competing until he was 3. meanwhile i had found a better class that was indoors and we proceeded to learn and screw up together for the next year.felon is an extremly graceful jumper and i can count on one hand the number of bars hes ever knocked down. This does create what i call his hangtime, which takes seconds off our time but ive learned to haul it on the straightawayys to make up for it. With the economy we have only been able to go to about 4 shows a year the last 2 years, but he almost has his master excellent titles, and has q'd 5 out of 6 times the last 2 competitions.. I also realized 2 years ago that i needed to get another dog to train to take some of the pressure off when competing.(more chances to q)My new flat coated retreiver is 2 and has been to 3 shows and is halfway to his open titles. He has shorter legs than felon, so he does occassionally knock a bar, but he has oodles of gusto. He actually gets a little too excited on the start line if you know what i mean (boy dog)! My husband has also become addicted to agility from watching and has been training a border collie, Bam Bam for 2 years. He was supposed to go to his first competition back in Feb. but in his very fast border collie way took out his femur on our fence post and had to have orthapedic surgery( It took 3 surgerys). He is finally healed and has been back in class for 3 weeks.He is going to his first competition in 2 days. The dog is ready, not sure my husband is, after 5 months off, he looks like a duck out of water!.will write more after the weekend and let you know the results.