Nationals are over

Boohoo. I really had a lot of fun this week at the national. Even though I hated having to drive the distance daily and the weather turned wet, and yucky, it was still great fun. I met a lot of people. Funny how dog people recognize dogs, but not each other. Yea yea, most people have no idea what I'm talking about. Heck, most people don't get so caught up in the dog world. I got a few pictures and some video clips of it all. I really wanted to take more, but ended up helping out and talking to others, so my concentration wasn't all there. I think the total was like 200 hundred dogs over the 4 days. That's a lot, and they were all the same breed. At points it was a mad house of barking dogs, especially when they were racing. Many well behaved dogs, and many not so well behaved.

I found out that Mingy my show dog has lost the show instincts. His breeder was there and she was happy with his looks and attitude. It took him a long time to remember her though. Whoops. She tried to walk him, and he forgot how to do the show walk. She held out liver to bait him, and he sat down. Hee hee. When a show dog sees a treat or bait as it's called when in the ring, they are to strike the show pose or 'stack'. Which in this breed means all four legs still and appropriately placed, tail down, ears pricked, head forward, eyes intent on the prize, and neck stretched to a pleasing angle. Ha! Mingy, sat, tail wagging on the ground, ears pricked, eyes at attention and big grin on his face. You can tell he enjoys a life of leisure!

Mingy's got a great personality, but he's shy. He is very wary of strangers. Give him a few moments to recognize you aren't a threat. There was an incident on Sat, where they popped out of the travel crate, and they didn't see me. Mingy jumped back up in the hatch, and a friend went to put his leash on him. Well he didn't know what was going on, and growled at her. So she stopped and decided to just stand at the door and let him get use to her. Another dog person from CA, came up and said, "Oh he knows me, I'll leash him" Even though she was warned. Yup, Mingy growled at her too. We had a conversation earlier in the morning about Mingy being a fear biter. She didn't believe it. When I got back to the car, I was able to borrow a collapsible wire kennel to keep them while I was helping out. I think I need to invest in a similar kennel if I bring the dogs to another one of these shows.

I might get into showing. My friend we call The Queen Mother, has a sweet dog. He is about 18 months old, and she wants to finish him. Well she wants to, but isn't sure if he can. He has a fear of the judging table. It seems at a show last year, the judge bumped the table, and scared him. Ever since then, he tends to lean away from the judge when he's on the table. We tried bringing him and the table to Starbucks to acclimate him again. Strangers were asked to come up and pet him, stroke him and generally let him know he's not gonna fall off. The hard part is that when he leans, the first thing you want to say is ,"Oh, it's alright, it's okay." That is not acceptable. They hear the tone that lets them know it's acceptable to continue this behavior. So, this dog needs to get his finishing points, and I want to try and show. I can't show Mingy, as it would be too hard for a newbie to jump into the higher class with a finished dog. It's cut throat at that level! Lulu got her stuff removed so she's out of the picture. Plus she's just too attached to me. She's a brat. I need to borrow a book from the library if they have it. It's a training book and if I can learn from that, then possibly I could show the dog in February.

There are still dog shows going on. There is one this weekend in Marietta, but I don't know how to get there, and honestly I don't want to drive up there. It would take at least an hour and a half to get there with traffic. Queen mother wants to go, but she doesn't want to drive either. She says she knows there is a back way, but that would take too long, and she doesn't like the freeway. I just want to give my car a break from all the driving. We want to go, but if she doesn't want to drive, I'm not going to bother either. Goof isn't that interested in going. I'll think about it some more.

Atlanta speedway is happening this weekend. I'm not sure which day it is. Goof says he can get tickets, but he's not so interested. He still thinks I won't like it. He maybe right, but how do I know if we never try? It's certainly boring on tv. Maybe in person watching 30 cars make a left turn for 500 miles would be fun and exciting. One never knows. Plus it's in the WM box. It's not with the masses. Food and alcohol will be provided. It's free for us! Why not I say. If he had gotten tickets to the Augusta Open, I'm sure he would have gone. Not that I blame him. Golf is fun for him. Hmm maybe next year he can get tickets to some big college football game. I don't know if they do things like that though.

Goof came home last night disappointed. It seems that his company has a conference this Jan. He was in on the conference call and got excited thinking he was going away for a week somewhere nice. Guess what? It's in town. There is a big conference center here that has a really nice set up. Other people in the conference call were worried about the drought situation. Goof piped in that we have plenty of water reserves for our county. They asked him how he knew and he admitted he lived in the town. He has become the point contact for this conference now. I told him if he wanted to, he could still stay in a hotel room. Even though it's only 2 miles from the house. I think it would be great. He does work, and relaxes, gets plenty of sleep on a nice comfy bed, if he wanted to he could pop in and relax in his undies, then head back. The plus side is if anything were to happen he's not far from the house. I'll let him stew on that.