Dog Day

My friends Nancy and Karen had to leave this morning to get back to regular life. Our annual reunion trips to Maine have been a highlight the last five years. We wait all year to see each other and before we know it the time is over.

Even though they had to get on the road by nine we had a few hands of Monoploy deal before they set off. It was the theme of our weekend so we had to end that way.

Russ knew I would be sad, so to counter that he and I set off for Union, Maine to watch the AKC dog show trials. I had only ever been to Crufts in the UK, which was like the Westminster Dog show on steroids. So standing in the fields of the country fair watching the dogs in a penned in area was a little different. We did not know we should have brought camp chairs. I thought theirs might be stands of some kind.

It was very interesting. We watched working dogs, Brittany Spaniels, German Short Hair Pointers, Golden Retrievers and Australian Cattle dogs. The owners and handlers were a colorful sort. I think one requirement is the woman who are showing dogs must wear the most unattractive shoes possible.

In the German Short hair pointer category one woman dressed to match her dog down to the shoes matching the dog’s feet color. She came in second, or at least her dog did. Since we are not experts we were not good at guessing which dog should win because it was not about which dog behaved the best, just looked like what the best in that breed was supposed to look like.

The amazing thing were the various vehicles the owners showed up in and the tents, tables, grooming setups, cages, rugs, toys, chairs and treat holders they all came with. Spectators were not allowed to bring dogs. I think they don’t want the riff-raff of mixed breeds intermingling with the well behaved.

I have to say all the dog people I talked with were very nice, but clearly were more comfortable with dogs.

On our way home we stopped at Wasses hot dogs, to continue our dog theme day. We were sitting in our car enjoying our dogs and a woman in a distinctive rust colored car with a giant white poodle backed in one space away from us. We recognized her and the dog and her partner who came back to the car with the hot dogs as our next door neighbors who never speak to us. Five years we have been spending a month next to them. We wave and say hi when we see them in our neighborhood and they turn their backs and run into the woods or the house when they see us.

Sitting at Wasses with their windows were rolled down was my opportunity so I got out of the car and went over and introduced myself while they were in the middle of eating their hotdogs. I knew that it was going to be hard for them to runaway mid-bite.

They could not have been nicer and very talkative. They asked me who our dog is as that is the only way they recognize people. I learned one was a master gardener and still worked. Their dog’s name is Chase. The gardener said she recognized my car and asked me if I was a teacher based on my license plate. So they have been paying some attention. They also asked about Carter and Claire’s dog.

They complimented us on how well behaved Shay is and that we are very quiet. Maybe now they will not be so standoffish and run and hide when we pass by and wave.

We went home and I painted some on my lobster. I decided I needed to lie down and promptly fell asleep and took my first vacation nap with Shay. I should have thought of this before.