Running Joy
Join me as I talk with Kristin Kaldahl award winning Agility Trainer. What a fun event to enjoy with your best buddy. Dogs love this exercise designed to heighten their skills. We talk about how to get involved and about her new book, Aslan: Running Joy.
BIO:
I’m a born and bred Okie, and like most born and bred Okies, proud of it. Aside from a short stint as an Army brat, I spent my childhood in the suburbs of Oklahoma City. My college friends nicknamed me “The Beaver” because my home life mimicked the television show “Leave It to Beaver.” My dad worked a full day as a pathologist while my mom stayed home, cleaning and cooking in high heels and dresses. Seriously. She still does. It was an idyllic life only marred by my kidney failure when I was thirteen.
It’s a long, hard story, but after nine months of dialysis, I received my first kidney transplant in 1977. Thirty-one years later, my first transplant failed, and that very weekend, a perfect match donor kidney became available. My second kidney is rocking it. My life–my writing–is owed to God’s grace and the courage of two families who agreed to donate their loved ones’ organs during the most difficult of times. It amazes me. They thought of others in the midst of raw, overwhelming grief. If you have not, please talk to your family now and let them know, if the unthinkable happens, you would like your organs donated to save others.
A quick summary of the rest of my life goes something like this. I graduated from Putnam City High School in Oklahoma City and attended both St. John’s College in Winfield, KS and then Oklahoma City University in Oklahoma City where I received a degree in Mass Communications graduating Summa Cum Laude and co-valedictorian. After college, I entered the workforce living in Independence, KS; Overland Park, KS; Westfield, MA; Girard, KS; and Prairie Village, KS before returning to Oklahoma City where I currently live on the same block on which I was raised.
Like the circle of life, I returned to roots after seeking adventure and fortune in the wide-world. I am happy to be back on the banks of the Deepfork river where I live with my dogs, surrounded by family and friends.
At fourteen-years-old, I got my first dog–a collie named Ruffis. I wanted to compete in conformation with him, but unfortunately, his nose grew the wrong way, slipping down instead of pointing straight. Instead, we began a journey into competitive obedience, and my world has never been the same.
As an adult, I returned to training with a frightened, rescued American Eskimo named Laika. In spite of her global fear, she fought to earn a title in dog agility and a Canine Good Citizen title. She happily retired after those titles, but I wanted more. I went on to train my first sheltie, Aslan, in agility. The word is way overused, but Aslan really was awesome. His joy pulled me wholeheartedly into the sport, and I have never looked back. In total, I have competed in dog sports with five dogs earning seven agility championships, over 170 titles, thousands of ribbons, tens of thousands of memories, and friends uncounted. My dogs have taken me places in real life that I read and dreamed about in my beloved, fictional childhood dog books. It’s beautiful when dreams come true.
I continue to compete in agility with my current teammate and service dog Aenon. Like each of my dogs, he teaches me new lessons every day as we work to sharpen our skills and, like iron sharpens iron, each other. With each weekend of competition, Aenon and I follow in the footsteps of Aslan, Asher, Jericho, Laika, and Ruffis as we conquer obstacles and seek adventure. I have a lifetime of experience gathered from living with these patient, loving dogs and fodder for a small library of books. What a blessing to be able to write–through fiction–these furry characters into life again.
.