No Snow; Demo

SUMMARY: The snow fantasy is a bust, but we had an interesting morning.

There is no news on the snow. Got cold (28 in my yard this morning) but no precipitation to go with it. A very few places apparently got a touch of snow that stuck for a few minutes early this morning, but otherwise--nada. Not even on the mountains.

We attended the Pet Expo at the fairgrounds. I took my new camera toy without adequate preparation and so got only a few rotten photos. Plus I had both dogs, it was very crowded and almost everyone in the building had their dogs, and I had nowhere to put them except with me (which I knew ahead of time but hadn't realized how heavy the crowds would be).

Here's the booth we operated out of. You can see that it's wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling crates with other people's dogs between demos. 

Both dogs behaved very well, especially considering the noise and the heat and the excitement and the fact that, by the time we left around noon, you couldn't move a step without another dog's body right in front of your dog.

The demos were fun on the artificial turf. Both dogs slid a little at first but got used to it pretty quickly.

It also became very hot with all those people, even on a day with record-low high temps outside this probably uninsulated building.

I stayed later than I had planned so that we could participate in the Weave Pole Competition: Just about 6 of us per team, doing weaves/tunnel/jump/jump and then back again, then handing off the baton to next in line.

When I picked up my big bag of stuff and headed out of the building with both dogs' leashes in one hand, shortened to about 12", I was very hot, thirsty, with cramping feet (seems to happen with dehydration), stressed from managing the dogs, hungry because didn't take lunch with me. I worked my way out of the building all herky jerky--wait for the person ahead of me to move, wait for the dog crossing my path to go, looking for a space between two moving people to squeeze through, dogs on leashes on all sides. Just before I got to the doors, I tried to weave one way, the dogs tried to weave another, and a person with a dog cut in front of us. Dogs were then pulling one way, I was pulling another, I was saying "whoa whoa whoa" to get them to ease up (one-handed, trying not to drop my bag). I must've looked pretty haggard, because a lady dashed my way suddenly from the dock-diving booth a few feet away, saying something like, "oh my, are you ok? are you all right? Do you need help? who's leading who here?" and actually starting to reach for my dogs, I think. I just said I'm hot and tired and it's been a long day, and she backed off. But I must've looked pretty desperate, although not in the way she was thinking.

I was glad to get out through the doors into space and fresh air.

Must say that, given the crowding and excitement, it was amazing that I didn't see or hear a single bad exchange between any of these hundreds and hundreds of dogs who were strangers to each other. Oh, and the lady walking around with a cat in her arms!

I looked at some of the booths and chatted with some vendors and quite a few people interested in agility, but trying to do all that with two active dogs on leash was too much. Next year I think I'll go with my camera and no dogs--such an amazing collection of different sizes and shapes and colors of dogs, even more than at conformation shows (because of all the cool mixes).