# Back from national



## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Well I am finally home from the national. It was a good trip although not at all what I expected. First off it was a 3 day drive both ways....Florida, GA, TN, KY, IL, MO, NE, CO. A lot of NE.
My car rolled over 100K on the first way through Missouri and the only travel mishap was the front grill insert tried to come loose on the way back through Nebraska and I did manage to fix it with duct tape, go me  I did enjoy driving through the different parts of the US, we have a really beautiful country. Yes, even Nebraska. Did I mention I spent a lot of time in Nebraska?
Well what I was expecting to be ski lodges and snowy pine trees was straight up high plains desert and cow town. Greeley is not a ski lodge. Greeley is real flat, real dry, and real familiar with cow smells. Me, not so much. The 3rd day I was there I got sick as a dog from the altitude, and spent the whole day in the hotel room puking. How nice! Of course that was the day I had Fisher in Utility and Hunting Retriever. We missed both. 
The rest of the time I spent in my vendor booth. Honestly I did not get to see any judging other than the two classes I did make on Friday, and the final hour or so of BOB. I was kinda married to the booth. Did sell a ton of magnets though so that was great.
Friday I did 12-18 with Slater where he did make the cut so I was very happy; and did Team Obedience with Fisher and our team got first place!
My guys had a great time however, and got to socialize and meet many fans and relatives. Also a big benefit of driving through the midwest is you can pull over just about anywhere and have a sizable bumper-throwing field at your disposal, and we did find a pond or two as well (sans gators). 
There were quite a few Fisher puppies there...Slater (of course), Solar (New Mexico), Puzzle (Alberta), Jamey (Colorado), Clementine (Montana) and Carbide (Colorado)...loved meeting them all!!!! 
Of course the ultimate highlight was getting to spend the week with Yogi. We shared the vendor booth with Alison, and also a hotel room. Yogi is like a rock star. ALL DAY LONG people came to the booth just to see Yogi. He obliges them. He was the real deal. At 12 1/2 he is in spectacular shape and doesn't miss a step. He is not a dog, he is his own being. He is perfect. My two and Yogi got along famously and it was very cool having the three generations there. Alison would "Show off" their great temperaments in the booth and made me get my guys out and mingle with Yogi, too funny. Yogi really is darling.

Sunday was the last day, the WC/X...I had both my guys just in the WC, Slater for the first time. Well it didn't dawn on me until that day that Slater had never seen a pheasant before in his life, and they were using those on land. They had a spare bird for us to play with and SLATER HATED IT. He absolutely really hated it. Great. Well up we go, they throw the birds and he steps on the go bird and PICKED IT UP! YAY!!!!! Tore back to me, lined up for the memory bird, I took his pheasant and kicked him off for the 2nd one. Again he stepped on it (go puppy) but was like *** IS THIS?????!!!!!?? Well little feller refused to pick up the memory bird. He stood there and looked at me like, what kind of dirty trick is this??!!!? Ouch. So he did not pass WC but I was very pleased with his actual mechanics of the double and he did step on both marks. Oh well. We rarely encounter a pheasant when training/testing in Florida so there's avoidance training at it's finest! Fisher of course was perfect on his try. Fisher's puppies Jamey and Puzzle both ran and passed the WCX.

So that's about it. I am very happy to be home.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Oh, I will say that the land the WC/X was held on was west toward the mountains and was absolutely beautiful. You could see the mountains well and the landscape was a bit more varied, with good cover and ponds everywhere...really nice.


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## Packleader (Nov 27, 2007)

I love your story, especially the part about the duck tape. I never leave home without it. Sorry to hear about your altitude sickness, I'm a native of Colorado so I wouldn't even know how you felt. That's very cool you got to hang with Yogi. We watched him in the ring and the boy looks FABULOUS! I just love him and so did everybody else!! We had Talon and Diva entered. Diva made the cut in both sweeps and reg. class in the 6-9mo. but not Talon. Last year was our first National and he won the 12-15mo sweeps class, oh well. Well if all else fails we always have luck at the raffles. We won 3 really cool baskets and best of all........The 7 night stay at Mazatlan! That hummer is worth $1500 woo hoo! Geez I was worn out when I got home and I live 5hrs away from Greeley( not the ski lodge:no I can't imagine how you feel. Glad to hear you made it home safely.


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## GoldenSail (Dec 30, 2008)

Congrats--I was wondering when you would post. I noticed the win in team obedience which was awesome!

Sorry about the altitude sickness--that's one thing I noticed on the National website they mentioned. Didn't know such a thing existed until I read it (born and raised high altitude here).


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## hotel4dogs (Sep 29, 2008)

Welcome back!! So sorry to hear you were sick, I was sooo rooting for Fisher in the hunting retriever class. 
Sounds like a great time in any case, looking forward to the photos!
Question about the WC...you can enter Fisher in it, even though he's soon to be a MH?


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

Wow, that was quite a trip. So sorry you got altitude sickness. I would love to see Fisher in action someday. I once got to hold Yogi's leash for ten minutes and snuggle with him( the day he made the obedience hall of fame), and it WAS like being in the presence of a rock star. I was awed.


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## CarolinaCasey (Jun 1, 2007)

Glad you had a nice trip! So sorry to hear about the altitude sickness, I have heard about it but never been anywhere where I could be affected. It doesn't sound fun. Sorry you didn't get to run Fisher, but glad that you had some fun with Slater while you were there. PS- Anne loved her decal. I totally forgot to write back and let you know what she thought! She's saving it for her new car!


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## esSJay (Apr 13, 2009)

Glad to hear you had another great trip! Aside from the front grill and the altitude sickness, but the 1st place team obed, WCX and hanging with Yogi sure sounds like they made up for it!!! 

So... you've made it all the way up to Canada and all the way across the US since the middle of the summer... what's next?


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## Debles (Sep 6, 2007)

Glad you had a great trip and sorry about the altitude sickness. Greeley is really at very low altitude so it's a good thing it wasn't any higher up in the mountains!
Also glad you appreciated Nebraska!!! all 500 miles of it! It is beautiful especially farther west, with the Platte River running all along the interstate with cranes, bald eagles and all kinds of wildlife. Much more scenic than the dry brush of eastern CO!!! That's the price they pay for those gorgeous mountains.

Wish I could have made it out there!


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Yes I did prefer the "home on the range" of Nebraska to the wasteland of eastern Colorado! HAHAHA actually I was drooling over the great field training grounds in NE 
Central/West Missouri was my favorite.


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## sammydog (Aug 23, 2008)

It was nice to meet you! Good to meet Yogi as well! I have some pictures from Team Obedience I will have to post. I took pictures during the long down and Fisher was on the end I was. That was really awesome to watch! I still have not unpacked, cleaned... Got in late and back at work the next day. Whew! I need to do a writeup to post for our trip as well, add that to the list!


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Next roadtrip is Atlanta -- that seems like small potatoes compared to Colorado 
Next year we are planning a summer trip to Ohio/Michigan for hunt tests and if the Canadian national is in Ontario again. Also GRCA national in Atlanta, that's a nobrainer. 

Oh, also another interesting thing that happened, first day I get to the national I walk in to the vendor area and right there is some girl selling a cut metal sign of MY golden retriever agility design. Of course I'm not smart enough to be sly about it so I point at the sign and say "Hey that's my design!!!" I asked her where she got the design and she of course, swears SHE DREW IT!!! NOT!!! Oy vey. She'll be receiving a letter from my copyright attorney.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

That stinks that you traveled all that way and ended up missing half the stuff due to being sick. But congrats on doing so well in everything else!

I am considering Atlanta. But it is hard for me to get much time off work, especially so early in the school year. And Flip will still be pretty young (just a little over 2). If I'm going to make a major trip with him I'd like him to be at the top of his game, which he won't be at that age. So we'll see what happens, I might wait until 2012.


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## The Trio (Apr 24, 2010)

I was so bummed I couldn't go to nationals I wanted to meet everyone, but traveling with a 1 1/2 month old by myself for over 4 hours didn't seem like a good idea. That and Teddy wasn't there. I wanted to meet Fisher and Yogi. I also wanted to go to your booth Anney. You'll have to post pictures if you have any of the three generations. Ya, the altitude is a pain if you aren't used to it. I get sick above 10,000 feet.


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