Rabbit Run South checking in here! The past few days have been a trip (and then some).
Friday was a huge day for me - I met Linda and her mom at 6:30AM for a ride to the show to get Noah groomed and ready for the Open Sable and White Dog class at 8:00. My mother and Ann (and our pups) joined us at 7:30. Noah looked magnificent, and Linda did a great job handling him!
After S&W dogs, it was time to get Tansy ready for her class. My mom was a godsend, and was kind enough to do the bulk of the prep-work while I got dressed and ready to show our girl. Tansy was spectacular - we got a lot of compliments, and she made the cut in a very competitive class.
That afternoon, right after judging, came my favorite part of every National - the juniors clinic! The ASSA Junior Showmanship Committee does a great job every year organizing a practice session and pizza party for all of the kids and teens who are at the National. I was honored to be invited to help coach the juniors in the handling clinic. I really love being able to "give back" to an institution that did so much for me when I was a junior, and I had been looking forward to the clinic all week!
After we wrapped up with the juniors, it was back to the hotel to put my feet up while Mom and Ann went out to dinner with some other New England Sheltie fanciers. (After a long day, I needed the downtime.) I read my book, caught up on work emails, and watched a little TV... none of it, of course, the news!
When Mom came back at 9:30, she flipped on the local news... and we saw pictures of a building that had been damaged by a severe tornado. How terrible! Hmm... it looked like an airport had been hit. What a shame!
It took us a few minutes to realize that "the airport" was "the airport"... the one Linda and her mom were flying out of that night - and the one everyone else at the show who had flown into would be flying out of, too! No worries, though - it would surely be back running on Sunday. Right?
Saturday morning dawned with news that the airport was closed "indefinitely", which was estimated at "for a week". Yikes!
Lucky for me, Mom and Ann had driven out, so at least I had a potential ride home. We made the difficult decision to skip Best of Breed judging and leave St. Louis immediately following Junior Showmanship Judging (8:00 Saturday morning).
Others were not so lucky. Many people were scrambling to get rides for themselves and their dogs. Many had to hitch rides to other airports to pick up connecting flights (or to board new ones). I feel terrible for anyone who had to deal with this while preparing to show in Best of Breed - the added stress must have been awful.
We watched Juniors, cheered for the young lady who borrowed Checkers as a Juniors dog (they both did a fantastic job!), found rides back to New England for some of our equipment (which had to be jettisoned in order to make room for me in the van), packed up the grooming site, packed up the hotel rooms, and hit the road. We did ten hours yesterday and six today (nine today for Mom and Ann, who were going to Connecticut).
I'm safe and sound and home in time to get to work tomorrow morning... but very disappointed that I was unable to watch Breed judging. It truly is the culmination of the whole week, and (because it was the only day when we didn't have a dog showing) was the day I was looking forward to spending just watching judging. Nevertheless, it was a great National, and I'm very pleased with how our dogs did.
Thank you all for joining us on this journey, and for your compliments and congratulations. An extra-special Thank You to the moderation team here at Sheltie Forum for holding down the fort while Ann and I were away!
I hoping soon, but doubtful due to the pics that are coming in....
I had a quick perusal of the classes and entries and it is comparable in size to our English Championship show, held in October, but I rather like the idea of judging being spaced over several days rather than one. It is very hard to watch everything even if you are not showing, when the dog and bitch judging as well as obedience all run concurrently. When I was showing and working in obedience, it was just so hectic!
Since I was not getting anywhere with anyone I said ok im making my own plan...we left at 3am drove up to o'hare got there around 10am dropped off the car and made our flight, while I was driving the airlines called me and I told them of my plan and they said ohh thats fine...grrr you could not have said that at 10pm!?!?!?!? Anyway...I was never soo happy to be on a plane..I actually was soo tired I slept most of the flight back....Noah is sooo happy to be back with everyone, Mia was soo happy she jumped out of her crate and into my arms and is glued to my hip as I type...Six is ever soo wild..he has obviously had no structure all week...sigh...now to put him back on a structured schedule....I will upload pics later after my mom shows them to my dad..
