Thursday, January 19, 2017

Rose City Classic, Day 1


I had this whole grand plan of doing all this videoing today of the process of getting to the show and all the neat things at the show.  But that went completely out the window when I had to deal with unanticipated, stupid traffic.  It took me an hour and a half to go 24 miles.  This isn't LA people!  I budgeted for an hour, which I felt was generous given that I was hitting the road at 6:00 am.  I wanted to make sure that Dominic had a solid hour to acclimate to the show grounds and all the hubbub.  That didn't happen at all.  We got there so "late" that I was debating even setting up his crate.  But it was still good practice for him and I did want to be able to watch as much of the rest of the danes as I could.  So we worked with what we had.

Dominic is still really great in his crate.  He is also less distracted outside of the ring.  There is still general squirreliness and distraction while inside the ring, but that'll get better with more handling classes.  And that's the key for him.  He needs the distraction and commotion of a handling class in order to learn how to work regardless of it.  Last week I was hoping to go to two different handling classes with him, but both were understandably cancelled due to the weather.  This week I wanted to stay at home in the evenings because Miley got spayed and gastropexied on Monday and I wanted to keep an eye on her (she's recovering like a freaking champ!).  So my plans for added preparation for Dom were a bit foiled.  But it's four days of shows and I'll be sure to leave extra early tomorrow morning.

I did video a little bit of my traffic frustration, some of the best of breed ring for danes and then Dom and I burning off some energy after the show.  The numbers at the show today are definitely down.  With some highways still closed, many people are struggling to get here.  Today was probably the quietest day at the show and the chaos will only increase.  Thankfully we show at 8am all four days and, particularly on the weekend, we can show and get out of there before it gets to be too crazy.

Without further ado, here are the video clips that I did manage to get:


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