Swiss Lick Swissies

GSMD National in Springfield

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 | Indigo, Litter Mates and Swissy Friends

Yes, the National event was last week. Yes, I am just writing about it now. Yes, I am hanging my head in shame.

The event was held in Springfield, Illinois at the fairgrounds. Because I have a few things coming up that require me to take vacation, I wasn’t able to make it for the entire week. That’s ok, though. I didn’t have any dog to show, and we haven’t been competing in any working events. (Yet.)

Indy and I drove down on Wednesday night and made it early enough to see some of the Top 20 event. The building was quite warm, and the area outside was very wet and muddy from all the rain they’d had during the week. We stayed for a little while and spoke to a few people, then headed back to the hotel.

Getting into the hotel room for the first time (with Indy) was rather interesting. I had already carried our stuff into the room before I took the last load (computer bag, purse) and the dog. Well, we got to the room, and Indy decided she didn’t want to cross the threshold. She braced herself on the ground, pulled, and was out of her collar. As she ran around the parking lot freaking me out, my hotel room door was wide open with her leash and collar on the floor. In hindsight, I should have picked that up first and then hauled arse to get Indy, but I wasn’t thinking too clearly. I just reacted as I was worried about cars in the lot. We played chase for a bit. I caught her by the scruff once, then lost her and caught her again. My (cheap but favorite) Crocs sandals were muddy and ripped. Yup, ruined. But I did finally get her in the door after much embarrassment and perhaps a bit of anger. Go figure, nobody helped.

After things calmed down a bit, we wandered around the grounds and ran into a few people. We met a cute Entlebucher named Kip. Yes, I want to steal him. And I learned that his breed is pronounced “entleebucher.” I still want to steal him.

The next morning, we showed up for the “how to” weight pull event, and then watched the weight pull. I’ve never been able to make one of the Lake Shore Club pulls before, so this was great. I was able to try on a harness and determine what size Indy wears. I wanted to get her to pull the big cart since we’ve tried tires and other smaller things, but I didn’t want to do it during the event because I thought that would stress Indy a bit too much for her first time. Well, that never happened. I’ll get her at the next Lake Shore event…

It was a lot of fun to watch the event. I took some pictures (to follow) and pretty much passed Indy around to strange people as much as possible. Well, I guess only one of them was actually a stranger to her. She did very well. A wonderful Swissy named Bridger (check out the skijoring article for more about him and his human), won the event pulling 4009.8 pounds, which is over 35 times his body weight. It was fantastic watching the two of them–they are a great team.

So, I did take a few pics. The lighting was poor, and I have been too lazy to touch them up. My apologies. But I don’t want to wait any longer to post, or it just won’t happen.

Here’s Monty in the “intro to” part of the day. They start them off on a smallish tire to get them used to the harness and having something move behind them.

Indy and her nervous ears posing.

Our friend Tank resting between pulls.

People will do all sorts of things to get their dog to pull.

Moose Moose talking back.

Here’s Louie and his human. Brian is trying to convince Louie to pull. It was Louie’s first weight pull event.

Here’s Bridger and Teresa after the record breaking pull. I cannot take credit for this picture…

That’s it for now! Thanks for reading.

Tags: Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, Indy the Swissy, Swissy

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