The National Continued - Parades

Monday night of the national specialty was the Parades evening. I was really looking forward to that! It had already been a pretty long and full day, but I had put a lot of thought and effort into what I was going to do for each dog and I was really excited! My theme was the Backstreet Boys as I mentioned in a previous post. Heffner would be going in with their song "I Want It That Way" and Bess was going in to "Larger Than Life." And as I also mentioned, I was going for specific outfits for our events, so we'll start there.;0)

As a true BSB lover, I have been to MANY of their concerts. I chose one of the concert t-shirts I have from when all five guys were still in the group and was a shirt that I particularly liked. Hence the picture at the top of this post. For the pants, I wanted to make something a little more original with a little bit of my own "flair." Two pounds of "awesome" gems and a cheap pair of jeans later, I had the perfect pair of pants! Due to Heffner's routine, I needed to leave the front of the jeans mostly free of designs, but that left my entire backside to embellish. After a little thought, I put A.J. on one back pocket (my favorite BSB guy!), BSB on the other, Heffner's name down one leg, and Bess' name down the other. I loved it!! And because I had been running short on time before heading out to AZ, all of this was done from the hotel room.
Okay, so my super awesome outfit was complete, but what should I do for the dogs? A few months prior Kennedy had said that she would make the dogs a couple of special collars for the event, she just needed to know what I would like. She gave me some questions to ponder and get back to her on ideas. I really didn't have anything to give her. So I put out a plee on the blog as time was getting closer and I still had nothing and needed to give her enough time to actually make the collars. She read my plee (and probably the desperation in my words) and we did some emailing back and forth and got it figured out. I send her some pictures from the CD jacket as well as a couple of other group shots that I liked of the group and she came up with a truly custom job for the dogs!! The collars are AMAZING!! My only regret is that these special collars didn't get nearly the recognition that they deserved! Thankfully I can give out some serious props on the blog.:0) I really am in love with these collars!! Kennedy did such an amazing job, especially considering that I didn't really give her a whole lot to work with. She came up with the idea, figured it out, and produced a ridiculously awesome custom item! And the price didn't even reflect the amount of creativity that she put into it. If you need something really special and unique done, I definitely recommend hitting her up!;0) Without any more rambling, here are some shots of the collars.:0)






With all these little touches, I was stoked to get my dogs out there and show them off! About a half hour before the parades were scheduled to start, I started inflating the giant ball. That was fun. I had to find an out of the way space to use my VERY loud air compressor that wouldn't tick anyone off. Thankfully no one was around in the crating room, so I got things going in there. And of course, about half way through someone came in with their dog to get something out of their crate. Needless to say, they were a little surprised and wary at seeing this random person inflating a giant ball with a very loud contraption. Thankfully it was over and done with pretty quickly and I got everything set up near the ring. My friend Megan was going to help me balance the ball for Heffner and also be the lookout for when I should start getting him in line. I quite literally couldn't have done it without her!!! Everything went off without a hitch for both dogs. There was one small exception with Bess. I haven't done the four feet in a box with her for a few months now and I forgot to reintroduce it to her so that she could remember what to do. Part of what I was planning on doing in the ring with her was to have her do that trick with the tiny box. With all the excitement and everything going on, she just wasn't entirely sure what I was asking her to do, so we skipped that. And yes I have video!! My wonderful friend Faith was recording both dogs for me!! Here's the video.:0)




It was amazing being out there with my dogs and showing off some of their skills! As you may know, and hence why I have this blog going, I'm pretty damned proud of my dogs. We have our ups and downs, but regardless of that, I'm proud of them and everything that they have accomplished. They mean the world to me and it felt so good for them to have their individual time in the spot light. It also felt great that I had friends in the audience who were hooting and hollering for us. I have some pretty amazing friends.:0) That single event was absolutely the highlight of the trip for us and I'm so glad that I had that special moment with each of my dogs.

And we got some pretty cool ribbons!
But I do have to say, the Great Dane Club of Northern California parades ribbons are bigger! he he he....'cause we all know that size does matter.;0)
And thus concludes the first very full performance day that we had. In order to set things up for the agility and rally day, I'll remind you of what had happened just the day before and the fluids that I consumed that day. Obedience, the agility workshop, a surprise birthday party, and the parades were all on Monday. The previous Saturday night I had spent puking. Pretty much all of Sunday I had spent in bed recovering and not really feeling up to taking in a lot of fluids. By Monday morning I was feeling better, and had popped a couple of Advil and also downed a couple of Cokes to get me a little more alert. I didn't drink a whole lot of water that day even though it was hot and I was spending a lot of time out and about in the hot weather. So lets tally that up. Vomiting tends to dehydrate you. I was in a hot dry climate, which will also dehydrate you some. I drank a couple of Cokes, which are diuretics and cause you to pee out what moisture you have in your body. I was also doing a lot of running around with the dogs in the heat. And I didn't drink much water at all. I setting myself up for some serious dehydration!

And with that, I need to go get ready for dinner with some friends and then get ready for a cold weekend of AKC agility with the big dogs!! Happy Friday everyone!