I took Tessa and Dean with me. Sammie and Speedy stayed home with Ben. I was sorry to leave Speedy. He had always been my Freestyle demo dog, and I had actually never been up to the Farm without him. But he doesn't enjoy performing in front of a lot of dogs anymore, and since I was staying in a tent, it really was much easier to only have two dogs with me.
Originally, I had asked to be able to do my demonstrations outside since both Tessa and Dean's routines really require a full ring space to showcase their movement. But when I got up near Binghamton, it started to pour rain. It poured and poured and poured from Binghamton all the way up to Morris! When I got to the Farm, the rain was finally clearing out, but the grass was drenched, so we decided to move the demo into the barn.
After checking in, I took the dogs for a hike to our tent. There are few things I enjoy more than hiking with my dogs at Glen Highland Farm! They can run on the trails off leash and I don't have to worry about them. They love it, too! Tessa just glows as she runs at the edge of the woods. That girl simply loves the woods!!
Once we found the tent, I made up the bed, got the dogs a bucket of water, and we took an hour rest. I hadn't stayed in a tent at GHF in many years and it was wonderful to relax in the tent, reading a book, just being in the woods.
On the way up to our demo, I took them to the creek. It was kind of cool for the creek, but Dean desperately wanted to go, so we went. In spite of the fact that it was cool, I both of them might have gotten hot with so much walking and I wanted them fresh for their demo.
The demos went well. I didn't get video. Tessa went first. She stayed focused, and did all of her moves! Then Dean did his Bolero, or at least a modified form of it. This was the first time we had performed the new version and it went really well. We got a lot of positive feedback and a good many were interested in coming the next day for the 2 hour lesson time that I was able to offer.
After dinner at the barn, where I enjoyed visiting with several campers that I knew from previous years, we headed back to the tent. Tessa loved that tent. I was concerned originally that she might balk at going into it since it is a small space and she usually doesn't like going into small spaces. But she went right in and seemed very pleased to be there. Maybe she thought we were all in a giant portable crate? In any case, she was happy as a clam in the tent!
It got COLD overnight and I was grateful that I had brought Ben's sleeping bag along! That was nice and warm. In the middle of the night, I woke up because Dean was trying to get up on the bed. I felt him and he was cold, so I opened up the sleeping bag, and had him get in. He curled up next to me, right in the bag on the unzipped side, and he stayed there until we got up! I did check Tessa, who was in Speedy's portable crate next to me. She was warm and cozy and just fine. I'm not sure why Dean got so cold.
It was strange to pack up first thing in the morning so the things at my tent could get picked up! It felt like I should have been there at least one more night. After breakfast and some very nice coffee at the barn, I headed over to teach.
I had quite a few students. Some were true beginners and some had some experience. We went over some moves and some people tried out moving to music. One student had a WCFO Heelwork routine to get feedback on and we all enjoyed watching that - twice!
After all of the students had gone on to the morning talk, I took Tessa and Dean to the creek one more time. It was warm and they were thrilled to run down to the water. We played in the water for a nice long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment