Best in Show, sort of

I have lived Best in Show, which if you have not seen the movie, it is a comedy about dog shows.  I would like to say that it is fiction, but truth be told, it was dead on.  When I got our second dog Nima, the name means “sun” in Tibetan and her kennel name is Legacy’s Little Miss Sunshine (I still wanted that sable colored female), I wanted to experience EVERYTHING with a dog, which meant I wanted to breed her.  And get the compensation for my efforts, meaning obtaining the AKC registration for her.   I spent one weekend in a Fargo hotel room with 2 other women and 7 dogs, 2 of which were unneutered males, 1 one which was 6 months old.  There is a new perspective to life when you are getting up at 4am to wash 7 long haired dogs in a hotel bathroom with a plugged drain, having to blow dry their hair with the hotel dryer as yours broke (after being bungee corded to the ceiling), the air conditioner doesn’t work and you have to be pretty yourself.  After getting “pretty”, you load 7 dogs into their individual kennels, load 7 kennels onto 2 carts (one with funky wheels) with bungee cords, load 7 kennels into the minivan, and drive 2 blocks to the  site.  Get all creatures into the auditorium, pulling the kennels over electrical cords, hearing them whine and trying to remember the potty schedule.  It is raining.  You do this three days in a row.  The highlight was standing in the ring and being screamed at or “coached” as some would call it, by a man regarding my technique for showing.  As I looked at the “coach”, I realized I had just seen him applying hair spray to his Low Chen – a breed which really only has hair on the head and is about 3 lbs.  All in all, I “finished” her in the ring that summer and was proud to have stuck it out.  Do everything in life once and the fun things twice.