The Turning Point
October, 2006. We'd been at it for one year. Right before the Austin show, I sat down and took stock. I had shown Weegie 15 times, and we had one point, from the show in San Antonio in March.
For the most part we were alternating between reserves and disasters. My log was full of entries like, "Judge could not examine teeth," and "Barked. Lost."
Sat - Showed well. Reserve.
Sun - Showed very badly. Jumped at the toy.Sat - Reserve.
Sun - Growled. Barked. Lost.Sat - Showed poorly.
Sun - Growled at judge. Lost.Sat - Did not show well. Sprawled on table.
Sun - Pulled. Lost.
I made careful notes about judges. A couple of times we had shown very well without winning. "Robbed!" I had written one time. "Never even looked at Weegie!" I had written another time. We would not show under those judges again.
If we showed at all.
Monday would be Halloween. My division planned to dress up as pirates, and we had decorated our common area to look like a ship in a lagoon. Then we found out that HR would be pirates, too, so I had hatched a top-secret plan to build a portable pirate ship over the weekend. We would sail it down the hall and surprise them.
"What are you doing?" Craig wanted to know when he got up Saturday morning. It was the day of the Austin dog show, and I had been up since 4 am cutting cardboard, gluing, stapling and painting.
"I have to build a pirate ship," I said. "We're going to attack HR."
Craig said it sounded like I was telling him about some crazy dream I'd had.
This close to home we just groom and show and go, so we arrived less than an hour in advance of ring-time. On the way in I saw Donna.
"If we don't win this weekend, I quit," I told her, and I think I meant it.
But there's no way to know, because we won both days. Barbara had brought her special bitch, a lovely dog, but Weegie was unbeatable that weekend. We had the right judges and a big coat and, for once, we put it all together.
This time, my log said, "Winners bitch, OS both days. Showed really well."
