As you might imagine, with 80 acres there was plenty of room for the trial. In the front yard there was room for two very large rings, a food vendor, a few other vendors, scoretable, hospitality tent, raffle area, tenting/crating area complete with some nice large trees for shade, and plenty of room for parking for all.
Behind the house was a large fenced in area for off-leash play. Our dogs just loved that! Slugger doesn't get much chance to be off leash anymore. He loves playing keep away from the girls. He runs just as fast as he can with his little head bopping up and down. The girls chase him down, roll him over a number of times and then start beating him up. We always have to call one of the girls off as two against one just isn't fair. Anyway, this was a fabulous place for our guys to play for a few days.
Next to the off-leash area they had a large doggy swimming pool. It was very nice (although we didn't use it) and seemed to be well used. On the other side of the off-leash area is another large fenced in area where they kept the horse while the trial was going on.
Just behind the off-leash/pool area was a HUGE field. This is where they had all the RV's park. It was so nice and very convenient. There were no hook-ups of course but that was just fine. We could run the generator without bothering anyone else. I'd say there were probably seven or eight RV's back there.
Friday evening as the sun was setting there was a beautiful reflection in the barn next door - which as you can isn't very close.
The people that put on the trial were absolutely wonderful. It seems as though they had thought of everything....and a little more! Each dog received a wonderful check-in gift. There were a lot of gifts to choose from and they were nicer than most we see. Then to our surprise each dog got another check-in gift on Sunday. That was a first for us!
In addition to the normal ribbons, they not only had Title Ribbons, they also had Perfect Day Ribbons. There ribbons were unique in the fact that some of the streamers were completely covered with dogs. The also gave out special gifts to anyone that was attending their first trial.
They did not provide lunch for workers but they did have a very nice worker's raffle. The gifts were all very nicely put together baskets with a variety of items in each. According to the tags, the baskets (and their contents) were donated by various companies. It really was very nice.
In addition, they had extremely nice gifts and ribbons for High In Trial, HIT Vet, and HIT Jr. Handler. For HIT they gave this really nice sturdy bag filled with a lot of handy dog items. There was a collar and leash set, treats, a couple books and magazines, a retriever dummy, a drink bottle, some Go Dog, a picture frame and various other very nice gifts.
Neither of our dogs won HIT but we had a great time. Saturday Wazzu was happier than I've seen her in a long time. It finally dawned on us that we were on a FARM! Wazzu has always been a farm dog. Whenever we would go to my friend Shari's farm, Wazzu would come alive. Everytime we go to a farm Wazzu becomes a different dog. And this was no exception. Wazzu went 5/6 on Saturday. The one we blew, Weavers, was because Wazzu was going so fast that I just didn't call her fast enough. I had just assumed she'd come toward me but instead she went full speed ahead into the tunnel that was right in front of her. But she was absolutely fabulous on the day.
Sparkie on the other hand had gone two weeks without doing agility and she was a wild child. Her motto of the day was "why run when you can FLY!" And she did fly....right over every spot of yellow she could find. So she only ended up going 2/6 but she had a blast!
Slugger tried really hard today. We entered him in Chances for the first time in just about forever. He did really well. But he thought the dogwalk was the teeter so he wouldn't do it. But he did everything else nicely. He ended up 0/2 but we were very proud of him.
Sunday was a new day and much hotter than Saturday. It was in the low 80's - which I just LOVED. But my girl, Wazzu, thought it was way too hot. So while she was still happy she was much slower. We only ended up 2/5 but we felt as though we did better than the score showed.
Sparkie settled down today and was her usual brilliant self. She got 1st place in every run - even the NQ run. She was eight seconds faster than any dog in any height and division in Tunnelers. So she was back to normal going 4/5.
Little Slugger tried hard again today but was a little over time in both his runs. So once again he was 0/2. But he really did try hard and once again we were very proud of the little guy.
Too bad the trial is over. That means Wazzu has to leave her farm, Slugger has to leave an off-leash play area, and Slugger has to leave agility behind.
Big Sigh.
Debbie
1/21/07
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