OMG

I had heard stories of NADAC shows running into the evening hours and I always said there was no way that I would stay at a show past 4:00 pm. So there I sat at 8:00 pm on Friday, July 4th waiting to run Shane. Not my idea of how to spend a holiday evening.

We left for College Station at 7:00 am Friday morning and got there in plenty of time to score a crating space, but found out that two other people had saved me space as well. Ooops.

Our first run was Hoopers, which I totally screwed up because I didn't know the rules. Also blew Weavers because I got lost and put Shane in the wrong set of weaves. In our first Tunnelers run, I couldn't pull Shane off the wrong tunnel. And to think I entered this show to work on Shane. Apparently I am the one who needs work.

Finally Touch N Go so I can work on Shane's dog walk contacts. He nails the contact the first time because I think he was slow due to the lack of slats, because the next three times he flies off in typical Shane style. Last chance for something - second Tunnelers run and Shane nails it - 2nd place and a Q.

It's almost 9 pm Friday night and I'm beat. Grab dinner and head to the Ramada, which turns out to be a dump. The room has an odor and there is no security at the door. Anyone can come into the hotel side door, which is out of sight from the front desk. We will never stay there again.

We shared the room with Ragni and her three dachshunds. Shane got along really well with them, but appeared a little freaked when we went to bed. He was panting and the bed shook, so I put him on the floor and he immediately went into his crate. Never does this when we travel. He always sleeps with me. Turns out that the dachshunds were not the issue, because Saturday night when we were all alone, he did the same thing. Turns out Shane is just as snobby as I am and cannot stand to stay in a dump.

Saturday we got into only three classes, so after our first run at 9 am, we didn't run again until about 4 pm. What a day. First run was Weavers, which we nailed - 2nd and a Q to achieve Shane's first NADAC title. Next two runs were Regular, so we worked again on our dog walk contacts to no avail. I was pretty crabby by days end. Hard to sit around all day waiting to see Shane fly off the dog walk yet again. Grabbed a bottle of wine and headed back to the dumpy hotel only to watch Jake's videos and sob. Learned later that Frank drove past the ER vet where Jake spent his last week on his way to shop for tires that same day and started to cry as well. Cosmic.

Sunday was a bust. Lots of spinning in Jumpers and Chances. Gave Shane some Rescue Remedy before Regular and it didn't help at all. Spoke to a very wise person who said Shane has the zoomies, only they are very tight. He doesn't run around the ring like most dogs with zoomies. Instead he just spins or runs past stuff. She told me to be patient and keep trialling. I was ready to give it up for a bit until Shane matured some more. Thank you Susan. Hung around to do Tunnelers to end on a high note, but Shane ran past two tunnels and we were .5 seconds over time. Glad to get out of there. Hard to endure the looks from people as you leave the ring a total failure. A few said some nice things to encourage me, but for the most part it was unpleasant. I doled out enough complements into my karma bank to hopefully have better luck next time.