Photos by Michael Loftis Photography

I always wanted a puppy. Apparently the first word I said was doggy. I can remember asking my mom if I could have a puppy. Being surrounded by at least two Westies at all times helped me decide on either a Parson Russell or a Scottish Terrier. I picked a Scottie. My mom told me to wait until I was eight. Well, my eighth birthday came and I reminded my mom of her promise. I told her that I liked the name Jasmine. Our other two dogs were old and we wondered what they would do with a puppy. After checking online my mom made an appointment with a breeder so we flew up in our airplane to Alabama where three black girl Scotties were shown to us. One was hyper, one was sleepy and one was in the middle. The hyper one ran, the sleepy one slept and the middle one pounced like a cat. We picked the middle one. It peed in the rental car then slept in our plane. We debated on the name but my choice held out. Jasmine was our dog. Mom kept insisting on taking Jasmine to “rock school” or obedience class. Finally, we began taking her to school. After graduating from puppy school, we started intermediate obedience/basic agility. Jasmine loved agility so after she graduated from basic agility we entered advanced agility and have trained there since. Our trainer, Diane Fyfe, told us that people compete in agility nearby and that a competition was coming up. We entered and really enjoyed the experience. We’ve been competing for two years now and are working on our MACH. I really love agility. It’s very fun and challenging. Being a junior handler is tough though because everyone is watching but, that is also a good thing because everyone is watching. I love running my dog through courses and we both have a great time. Jasmine always gets excited and runs around the car when we are almost to class. Now, Jasmine is four and I’m twelve. We plan to continue agility until our MACH and beyond.