The fair, a written review

Well, it's over for another year, and we all survived. It was a long week, with mostly good weather, but some bad.

Remember the previous post I wrote about Kylie's sore mouth? That was on Tuesday morning, the first day of the fair. Well, that night, I got home to a very sick Kylie with loads of blood and diarrhea in her crate. To say it was horrendous would be an understatement. I had to carry her to the tub to wash her before I could do anything. Then, I quick hosed out the crate while I had her outside, and then fed the dogs, and off to the emergency clinic. We got there about 8:15 pm. They took her vitals, the vet examined her, and then they got a critical case in. While I waited, I heard them tell the owners there was no hope, and they elected to euthanize the dog. Very sad (it was a burst splenic tumor). Then, just before she came in, another critical. That ended the same as the first, though, this was a bloat. Then, ANOTHER critical, brought in on a gurney. This was an old shepherd who the owner elected to keep on Oxygen over night, but it appeared she would die too. Can you imagine the sadness there? It was just terrible. Finally, they got to Kylie. She had vomited six times while we waited.

They took blood, and did radio graphs. Looked like Hemorrhagic gastro-enteritis. They wanted to keep her, but by now it was almost midnight, and I knew I could bring her to my vet at 7:00. So, they administered sub-cu fluids, and an anti-emetic, and sent us home with medication.

The next morning, I dropped Kylie off at the vet's office for IV fluids, and headed to the fair. I was worried, but knew she was in good hands.

I picked her up after the fair that night and she was on her way to normal again. What a terrible illness. Dogs just get so sick so fast.

Thursday was a nice quiet day at the fair, which was good, because I was a little tired....

Friday, we had sheepdog demos in the horse riding arena. It was a nice sized area to work dogs. Besides the dogs that the expert brought, a few others got to work. One was a thirteen year old Border Collie who comes to the fair with her owner every year and hasn't worked sheep in many many many years. She has three legs. Her owner brought her out and the expert took over. To see the light turn on, and her work so hard to cover, and well, it brought a tear to my eye. You had to see it. Her owner came up to me afterward, a tear in his eye, and gave me a hug and a kiss, and told me that he didn't know how to thank me.

Then, another dog who never gets to work sheep, but was bred by a well known breeder in VA, went in. She was AMAZING. Just that perfect combination of keen-ness, and biddability. Wow.

Then, are you ready for this??? Danny got to go in! She took hold of Danny's line, and let him go. Keen, yep, Danny is nothing if not keen. He did pretty well- went both directions and didn't cause any wrecks. It was great to see him work other sheep in a completely strange place, and take corrections well.

Lucy then got to work these sheep. She was high a kite, from not being able to work sheep much. Got some good driving out of her though, and good outruns.

The expert brought a new dog that she had. He was very VERY nice to watch work. He is going to do very well.

So, then on Saturday, we had more demos, but the weather did not cooperate, so we basically just got through it.

Sunday, they last day of the fair was MOBBED, biggest crowd ever. At one point traffic was stopped for five miles in all directions. People were walking more than a mile to get to the fair.

At the end of the night, I got my car, got the crates in the car, the dogs hopped in, and I waved good bye for one more year. We did well, I thought.