Fair Report, Part 1

Well, I’m going to start with the most exciting event first – the dog show. Madeline started training our 1-year-old Great Pyrenees, Ike, as soon as the weather got nice last spring. Once dog classes started the beginning of June she was out there with him just about everyday, spending at least 1/2 hour a day between training and grooming.

The afternoon of the dog show we spent an hour and a half in the bathtub with him – lather, rinse, repeat with whitening shampoo. And then an entire bottle of conditioner.

But boy did he turn out pretty!

Disaster almost struck, however. The show was at 7:00. About 6:00 we were still at home, getting ready, when Matt said, “Where’s the dog?”

Either Olivia or Rafe had accidentally let him out. And he wasn’t wearing his collar because we’d taken it off for his bath.

Not. Good.

He took off thru the cornfield and headed up the road. I hopped into the truck and took off after him. One good thing to come of dog class is that he loves to get in the truck now. So I got ahead of him on the road, stopped, opened the door, and he hopped right in.

Whew! We’re going to have to make a point to keep taking him for a ride in the truck every week or two.

I had ordered Madeline an early birthday present – a new collar and leash from 3 Dirty Dawgz . So I came in the house and said, “Ike’s in the truck but he doesn’t have his collar on, so you’d better open this and put it on him.”, and gave her the package. She was so excited.

Finally we were ready to go.

Ike and Madeline both did really well – especially considering how hot it was, and a scary dog fight that occured partway into the event between 2 other participants’ dogs.

One exercise they had to do was to put Ike in a “sit” at one end of the arena, tell him to “stay”, walk back to the middle of the arena, and then tell him to “come”. He had the “stay” down. Really well. So well that when she called him he just sat there. That got a laugh out of the crowd.

We knew Ike didn’t have a chance at winning the agility event against the more sporty dogs, but they had fun trying.

The show lasted about 2 hours, and they finally brought everyone back in the ring to award the ribbons. Madeline was thrilled to receive a blue.

And then she got a surprise – they announced that she had also won a purple ribbon for “Best Junior Handler”.

I’m so happy for her and proud of her, she worked really hard. And I can’t say that about all of her 4-H projects 🙂

The proud handler, and the pooped pup