Elmo is a supremely competent dog. Unfortunately; I, his owner/handler, am not nearly so competent. I tend to wind up at agility trials woefully ill-prepared.
Fortunately, agility is a friendly sport. Plus, my dog is really cute, which draws people to me. So I always seem to find someone who will help me with whatever I've done....
At the Puyallup trial, the weather was really bad. No, I mean REALLY bad.
On Saturday, it started out mild enough. Cloudy, a bit cool. I was bar-setting for the Excellent Standard class, and shivering in my shorts, but I could handle that. Then, as I walked about the grounds, it began to rain.
HARD!
Naturally, I had no shelter. Fortunately, the people in the EZ-Up I was nearest to invited me under. My dogs were in their crate, covered with a tarp, beside the EZ-Up. As soon as my new friends realized that my dogs were still out there, they insisted I bring them under. (the tarp was keeping my dogs dry, I'm not that neglectful!)
"What kind of dogs do you have?", the one woman asked me.
"Staffordshire Bull Terriers," I answered.
"Oh...." she said. I braced myself, prepared to hear something negative. "I LOVE the bull breeds!" she continued.
So, Elmo and Tully came in and made friends. We spent the weekend under that shelter, with these people and their lovely Vizsla, Betty. I was very glad of the shelter the next day, too, when the sun came out and it was blistering hot. (I sunburned my eyelids.)
At this point, I realized that I needed my own shade canopy. So, I got one for our next trial. Well, I didn't actually buy one. I borrowed it from my vet. I packed all kinds of stuff for our next trial, since it was almost a 4 hour drive from home. I planned to camp out for this 3 day trial.
Unfortunately, I didn't reserve a camping site anywhere, and we turned out to be in a popular vacation spot.
Once more, a Vizsla owner came to my rescue! I had visited with Heris' owner at trials before, and when she heard my plight, she invited me to set up my tent on her trailer site, on the trial grounds. My problem was solved, plus I had cool people to hang out with, all weekend!
Agility people are great... but especially those Vizsla folk!
Me... I need to learn to be more prepared.... Or meet more Vizsla owners, I guess....
