A lesson from Bailey

I decided to try to earn Baileys MXP, since she earned her MJP at the end of last year. Bailey is 10.5 years old, and she has never been hard core into agility. She is my first agility dog, and actually, my first dog! So I have learned a lot with her, made the routine first dog mistakes with her, and generally we just fumbled our way through the first few years of trialing.
 Bailey is 3 legs away from her MXP. In standard, I wasn't very sure she would make time, and lets face it, with her it has to be the PERFECT Bailey course, or she just isn't going to play. This leaves a lot of factors for us to overcome each run.  I ran her in Ohio on dirt, thinking the cold weather and dirt floor would be my best chance with her. I only entered her in standard. She loves the contacts, but she isn't always thrilled about everything in between, like jumps! She ran 2/3rds of the course fine, and 5 jumps before the end, she ran around a jump. Okay, she walked around it looking for the exit, which is not uncommon for her if she isn't in the mood that particular day. She always gets the same amount of praise and treats no matter how she does.But this time, I think I finally "heard" her. She was saying, pretty loud and clear, that she would like to be retired, thank you very much. The next day, the course was a perfect Bailey course. Contact to contact to contact,  weaves off my left, and pretty straight forward to the end. I went back and forth about pulling her or running her. In the end, I decided to pull her. I could have ran her in there, taken her across the contacts, and ran out. But why? She doesn't care, and it would have just been for ME. I am proud of myself for making this decision, because it was a very hard one to make. At 3 Qs from her MXP, we could probably eek it out eventually. But I am not so sure I would be proud of that. She wouldnt be doing it for the love of the game, she would be doing it because I asked her to and there was probably some good treats at the end of that course. In the end, its MY job to hear what she is trying to tell me, and do what's best for her, no matter what I want.
 I appreciate the lesson Bailey, and I am sorry it took me a while to figure it out. But you can just be *my* dog now at trials, the cute as hell, rotten, begging for treats, beautiful older lady who has a ball just being there. I love ya girl.