I really don't understand people.
I started selling Girl Scout cookies the very first year I was eligible to be a Girl Scout. I don't remember how old I was at the time, but I'm guessing I was near the end of grade school. At that time, there really wasn't much to selling Girl Scout cookies. You just went door-to-door. People opened the door and when they saw your uniform they knew exactly what you were doing. You didn't really have to say much. They would just ask what kinds you had available, what the price was, or they'd say they were on a diet. There really wasn't much in between.
Even at a very young age, I figured out that the customer is always happier if you give them more than what you promise. That lesson carried over well into my sales job 20 years later. I always told my staff not to oversell. Always hold one thing back even if it is something small. If people get something they don't expect, they are happy and impressed. But if you leave off one little thing, no matter how well you did everything else, they are disappointed. While today, I was disappointed.
We went to a fundraiser for the Arizona Jack Russell Terrier Rescue. Boogie and 2iggie were honorary JRT's for the day. And I'd say they represented them well. We went to this event one time before (of course without 2iggie) about three or four years ago. The second we drove in the driveway, Boogie knew exactly where he was. Their memories are amazing. I wish I had a fraction of their memory skills. But that's another story.
Since I go out so seldom, I was really looking forward to this event. I had e-mailed back and forth with the organizers to find out exactly what would be happening and when. Racing was to start promptly at 9 AM. So we arrived about 10 min. early. The only other people there were the people setting up the event. As it turns out, they didn't start racing until 10:15.
Boogie had never done this event before but we decided to let him try today. I'm sure you've seen it on TV. All the dogs are required to wear muzzles (Boogie has never in his life worn one), then they are put in to a small box while they wait for everyone to get loaded up. Once all the dogs are in place, the fronts of the boxes are opened at exactly the same time and the dogs rush out to chase a lure down the straightaway while they negotiate jumps.
When they first put a muzzle on Boogie, he was so busy watching the races that he didn't even seem to notice.
When it was his turn, Mike carried him over to the boxes. I think he thought there would be a rat in there as he was anxious to go in.
It only took him half a second to realize there was no rat in the box. At this point, he was thinking this was a pretty dumb game and proceeded to immediately tear off the muzzle.
Fortunately someone noticed and they held up the race while his muzzle was put on… much tighter this time.
However, now that he knew there was no rat the box he wanted nothing to do with going in there. It took Mike and another guy a bit of time to get Boogie stuffed into that box.
They're off! Well, all the Jack Russells were off anyway. Boogie spent a second looking down at the ground for the rat. If you look closely you'll see Boogie in the back right of the picture, smelling the ground.
It only took that split second for Boogie to realize the lure was moving. And he was fast. He made up ground on those Jacks. He thinks they should start having this game at Border Terrier events.
On his second (and final) turn, you can see the Jacks left immediately while Boogie and the other first time dog on the left are still in the box.
But once he is out, look at him digging! He was fast as he caught and overtook them!
2iggie couldn't play that game as she would never fit in that little box and she also couldn't fit into little hole at the end that they have to run into.
They only did the races for about 10 or 15 minutes and then they moved on to lure coursing. There was a charge (per person) just to get into the event and then you had to purchase tickets to play the games. Mike bought quite a number of tickets so that the two youngsters could have a good time all day long.
Wouldn't you know, the very second they started lure coursing, it started to rain. Boogie was about halfway through his first run when it started hailing very hard. He didn't even seem to notice. It hailed so big and so hard that cars were white....looked like it had been snowing.
At that point, the line got too wet and wouldn't go. So they had to stop the lure coursing for about half an hour until the hail and rain stopped so they could dry the lure line.
Boogie was a maniac! This lure coursing is set up in a rough circle, completely fenced with five foot tall orange fencing and numerous jumps and obstacles the dogs must navigate on their way around. (The fencing makes picture taking difficult.)
It's hard to tell in the picture but Boogie was barking like crazy all the way around.
As you can see, he is really moving!
2iggie got in on the action as well although she was hilarious. The lure operator was used to running it the speed of a Jack Russell. As you might imagine, 2iggie is much faster than a Jack. This guy could not figure out how to keep that lure in front of her. But she didn't seem to care. She ran right by the lure and just kept running the course as fast as she could. She did this on all three of her turns.
We had many tickets left and wanted to do more when they suddenly just decided they were done and were going to break for lunch. There were hamburgers and hotdogs as well as some cookies. I swear, a cookie made of concrete would have been softer than these cookies. Talk about a tooth breaker!
The next event was supposed to be the one I was really looking forward to. It's called Tunnel Vision. It's like the tunnels they have underground for Earthdog except these are above ground and one side is made of plexiglass so you can watch the dogs as they race through the tunnel to find the rat. But no. No such event was taking place.
Another activity that was to take place was pictures with Santa Paws. After about a 45 minute wait, Santa finally appeared. So Mike got in line with the dogs. He was the fourth person in line. You would naturally think that your turn would be fairly soon. But they couldn't get the camera to work. As they fiddled with that, more and more Jacks came and stood with their friends. It wasn't long before Mike was about number 20 in line.
Based on all the time we had already sat around just waiting, then having events not even taking place, Mike was in no mood to wait around for pictures. So unfortunately, we will have no Christmas pictures again this year. In addition, we have many tickets that we are unable to use as all the events are either done or did not happen. Had we known they were not going to have so many of the events, we certainly wouldn't have purchased so many tickets.
The dogs certainly did have a great time at the things they did get to do. But I was extremely disappointed with the event. So now we are back to the lesson. Give people more than what is promised, not less. We will not be returning. Too bad for them as we always donated a lot of money via the entry fee and tickets.
It was a long six hours for me to lie in the car. It's just no fun being so cold for so long.… And bored much of the time.
On a completely different subject.… I hate bad people. I know hate is a very strong word, thus I use it very sparingly. I hope someday they all get what is coming to them. And I hope it inflicts more harm on them than they inflicted on their victims.
Go in peace and love.
Debbie
