Making Your Own Fun

Sometimes, if things aren't very interesting on their own, you have to make your own fun. Bethena (and her sister Ella) were all about that the past two days.

Wednesday morning was a nasty, nasty day weather-wise. It was oppressively humid and very hot (for New Hampshire standards; my flat-lander parents thought the heat wasn't as bad as we did). At least it wasn't sunny most of the time; the clouds were fairly thick and only rarely let a little sun shine through. I had my cooler full of ice water for the dogs, turned their crate fans on, and parked in our usual shady spot under the pine trees where Heide also parked with Ella and Cola. (Several other obedience competitors also parked up there, a little ways away from the action, but definitely the shadiest place to park on the fairgrounds.)

The judge Wednesday morning for rally went a little slowly. There was a delay in the Excellent class when one of the first competitors ate all of the treats from one of the off-set figure 8 bowls. The delay happened because the judge didn't have any more treats to put into the bowl so had to ask the people under the tent (i.e. the exhibitors) whether any of them had any treats she could use for the remainder of the trial. WHY the judge and the handler let the dog eat the treats is beyond me. As one of the other exhibitors commented, it's going to take MONTHS to break the dog of the habit of going to the food bowls now that she has learned that when you do the offset figure 8 you get treats.

Anyway, it was a little bit of a wait until time for the Advanced class, but that is not unusual. During the wait, Bethena and Ella barked back and forth to each other from their respective crates in their respective cars, both frustrated that they were isolated instead of playing. Both Heide and I got them out a couple of times to walk around, but we couldn't take them long or far because it was so hot and humid.

When showtime finally came around, Ella was immediately before Bethena because the dog who was supposed to be in between us was absent. Ella wasn't in the mood to pay a whole lot of attention to the course; there were much more interesting things in the offset figure 8 treat bowl and outside the ring. After she ran out of the ring (or tried to) twice, she was done for the day. Bethena didn't do any differently, she was panting and hot and knew Ella had just been there and pretty much made a cursory attempt at staying with me but really didn't want to be there. She also tried to make off with food from the treat bowl and we got excused. That was probably a good thing, as finishing would have been even more stressful for both of us.

I think the humidity (and the heat) really got to Bethena much more than I realized at the time, and if I had understood how bad she felt, I would have pulled her from the trial. She definitely felt sick after the trial for several hours, was drooling (and nauseous) and had some diarrhea. When we finally got home, she crashed and slept hard for most of the rest of the day and night. I felt awful that she didn't feel well, but Shana checked her out and didn't find anything too serious (no dehydration or anything).

Yesterday morning, Bethena definitely felt better. Everything was normal, the weather was much cooler and drier, and we hit the road. This time, I took them swimming first to help get some ya-yas out and to get her wet so she would stay a little cooler (hopefully). I stopped to see if Heide wanted to bring Ella and Cola too; we couldn't decide if they would be better off seeing each other and playing ahead of time (so they wouldn't be pining for each other) or whether they should not see each other at all (as opposed to the day before, when they saw each other a little bit). In the end, Heide wasn't ready to go anyway, so they ended up not seeing each other at all before going into the ring.

That might have been a mistake. OTOH, it might not have made any difference. Bottom line is that there wasn't any big difference in performances from either one of them between Wednesday and Thursday. In warm-up, Bethena was definitely paying more attention to me Thursday and was much brighter. Once we got under the tent, however, I lost her. I had thought about bringing her down much earlier and keeping her with me in the shade so she could get used to the situation and the other dogs, but that would have put her where Ella would see her ahead of time and I knew that Heide wanted to try to go in the ring without that happening. The situation under the tent, though, should not have been a big surprise to her -- she has been in that situation plenty of times before. The biggest differences were that she hadn't been out as much as usual and hadn't been hanging around the ring beforehand as much as usual.

I didn't see Ella's performance, but I hear that she immediately ran to where the food had been the day before and ran around the ring and basically had a grand old time without acknowledging Heide's presence at all. After they left the ring, there was one dog between her and Bethena. When Bethena got in the ring, she immediately ran off as well. We got through a very small portion of the course before I asked to be excused because I didn't want Bethena to get the idea that doing whatever she wants to in the ring was OK. Later, I asked the on-lookers if Bethena had gone where Ella had been and found out that she had basically tracked Ella's path. She is SO good at tracking, maybe we should switch to trying to get a tracking title for her!

Heide and I think that Bethena and Ella illustrated the past two days a combination of an "I'm too smart to care about stupid old rally when there's real life outside the ring" and "I've already shown you I can do that so why should I do it again?" attitude, perhaps combined with a little "What, me worry?" attitude on Ella's part. What made those days different from the days in Boston where Bethena just shone in the ring, I might not ever know.

We had fun though, and going to a show is always a good day. A lot of people from class were very successful not only fun-wise but also qualifying-wise. Cola got her first two RA legs and placed both days; Olivia got two RE legs; and Flash got a few legs toward her RAE. Congratulations!

In retrospect, I have decided that their love-of-life attitude is a genetically predetermined trait for Bethena and Ella so their behavior is not their fault or their handler/trainers' faults. Three years ago, when they were still not a year old, we had a reunion of sorts in Canada with Ella and Heide, Bethena and me, their littermate Woody and breeder Bev, and their mother Florence and breeder Jean-Louis.




Bethena is the black one, Woody has his eyes closed in the first picture, Ella is sitting directly in front of Heide, and Florence is the one acting up in both pictures. There are two other pictures from the same day that are similar. While the rest of us were able to look at the camera at least once, Jean-Louis had his hands full trying to get Florence to settle down.... Like mother, like daughters.

Heide is thinking that she won't continue to do rally with Ella, just with Cola (who is awesome and was HIT (high in trial) at the Potomac specialty a few years ago out of Novice B). I wish that they could be together, but I think it would take some work to figure out what the right conditions would be. In class, they can do it even when the other is there, but I think that is because they are able to see each other and visit more than they were able to at the show. We'll have to see how things go and I need to think about whether and who to enter at North Conway.

P.S. Iggy was there both days and was (mostly) a very good boy. He was very excited and wanted to play, but that was only to be expected.