Michigan Show

So, I know many of you are looking at that title and going... wait... she said she was going to Ohio.  And yes, we did go to Ohio.  For the Michigan show, which, instead of being in Michigan, was in Ohio this year.  Don't even bother asking, I have no idea how that worked out.

But regardless, Friday after work, I packed up some chins and Meredith and her husband showed up, and we all packed into the blazer and headed to Ohio.  Got to the hotel a little after midnight.  Was a bit disappointed that the pool and hot tub were being renovated, but oh well.  Got some food, snacks, pop and got in our room and groomed the chins.  Fun fun.  Filled out the paperwork for the show and finally got in bed at like 2 am.

And then back up for the show at 7-7:30ish.  So we get there, do last minute touchups on grooming.  If I'm remembering this right, the show goes white, sapphire, violet, beige, naturelle (standard grey), black velvet, and ebony.  So I had one chin in the white group, classified as a mosaic (there's also predominantly white, white with dark guard hairs, pink white, white with beige guard hairs).  He got a second, knocked down on size and conformation.  Which I knew, but I wanted to see how he did.  His mom will get another chance and see what she produces, maybe need to switch up what male she's with.

Got to beiges and my other two girls were up in their classes.  They both got 1sts, both were a little rough, both down in conformation (one moreso than the other) and one with loose fur around her backside and hips.  The larger one I'm going to hang onto to see if she improves at all, the other two will be up for sale soon.

Got to the standards and black velvets, which Meredith and her husband brought, her one black, Sirius, went all the way up to reserve black male of show!

After the show, I went up to Ryersons and asked if they'd be willing to sell their beige female (champion beige female of show).  Rich said talk to Jan, and Jan said she'd sell it to me for $200, which is awesome, considering I've paid a lot more for chins that haven't placed that high.  So now I have a puffball beige female.  I'm thinking I will keep her out of breeding until after Nationals, which is next month, so I can show her again and see how she does.

So, we cleaned up after the show, Meredith got her trophy.  Rich gave me the trophy for the beige female I purchased (yippee!! I have a trophy!!).  And we all went over to Jim Ritterspach's ranch (which was literally, around the corner from the show).  He took care of several people who were wholesaling chins to him (apparently, $35 for standards, $45 for mutations) and then found Meredith and her husband some chins, and then looked at my chins and her chins and, along with Brenda Walters (the judge at the show), helped to answer my questions and explain what should have been different in my chins to make them place higher and get higher results.

Cause see, 1st place isn't the highest.  In every class, there's typically a 1A (best animal) and 1B (second best animal) -- 1st place is below the 1A and 1B.  When all the classes for a color, say, whites, are done, all the 1A's compete for phase champion.  The best is phase champ, the second best is reserve phase champ.  Then all of the phase champs compete against each other for color section champ and reserve color section champ.  Then all the color section champs compete for champion male and female.  Then those compete for grand show champion and reserve gsc.  So, first isn't bad, by any means... but it's not quite "up there."

So, we'd been talking to someone earlier and I'd mentioned I couldn't easily tell the difference between a sapphire and a blue diamond, when looking at pics.  They said they had both, if I wanted to see em side by side after the show.  So, I got to see the two next to each other.  Turns out, the blue diamond is more of a powder blue, versus the sapphire being a darker blue.  Was kinda neat to see em together to be able to compare.

So then we went to see Amanda and Jim's dogs (they breed australian shepherds), got to see their new house, and went and played pool and had snacks with them for awhile.  Eventually left to go back to the hotel.  Ordered pizza and other goodies from the pizza place and watched some tv before going to bed.

Got up in the morning, went to pick up our trailer, and luckily they let us take it, because my connector (for the brake lights and turn signals on the trailer) was corroded and they couldn't get it to connect very well.  But thanks to the country-ish guy who ran the u-haul place, they let us take the trailer, with the comment that we might not have taillights once it got dark.  Ok, fair enough.

We almost get stuck getting out of the parking lot, but rock it a time or two and switch to 4wd and make it out.  Cause, of course, it'd snowed like 5 inches the night before.  So, we get it out, and head to the Ryersons, where Meredith and her husband were picking up some holding cages and runs, and I was picking up two runs and some dust.  So we got that all loaded, decided I also needed a bag of blue cloud and some water bottles, and got everything packed in the trailer.

Ok, wait, back up, it wasn't really that simple (though, that would have been nice).  We always pick up supplies at a back building on the Ryerson property.  So, me, being a genius, pulled the trailer back there, and then realized... I didn't have enough room to just easily drive it around.  Oops.  So I asked Ryerson if he could help me.  In all fairness, it was in his best interest to help if he wanted me off his property, but regardless, he was really nice and helped me get the trailer into position.  Not once, but twice, because some of our supplies were at a different barn.  Rich was hilarious in helping me, and very patient.  Cause, if you haven't pulled a trailer, let me tell you, it's not as easy as it looks (at least, not for me).  And Rich said that the small one-axle trailers (like what we had) are actually more difficult to back up than are tractor trailers, because the one axle pivots the second you turn the wheel a little bit.  Which makes sense.  But anyway, thanks to Rich for the trailer lesson.

So we get our stuff, pack it all up, and go, and we're still on back roads, going bout 40 or so on the snow... and start to slide.  With all the snow covering up potential ditches on both sides of the road, we could not slide off the road, so I keep trying to turn it back towards center, but of course the entire thing is sliding back and forth and back and forth until we finally come to a rest sideways across both lanes road.  That was terrifying to say the least.  I actually think the fully loaded trailer helped significantly in staying on the road... because the weight of it, plus the probably 500+ pounds of cages/supplies in it helped weigh us down enough that it acted as an anchor so we didn't go flying off the road.

Got going again, probably didn't go over 30 until we were on the actual highway, and the rest of the trip was relatively uneventful.  Just had to stop a few times for gas and really that was it.  Dropped off Meredith's husband and their supplies, came back to my place and dropped off my stuff, and drove to U-haul to drop off the trailer.  Got there and the dropoff lane was completely full, and there didn't appear to be enough room to fit a car through between the dropped off vehicles/trailers and the already parked ones... so the only option was to back out... which meant... backing the trailer into a spot so I could back out without it behind me.  So the trailer lessons came in handy!  I feel like I did better than I have in the past.  We needed to get it back another foot or too, but the trailer is so light, we just detached it, and I lifted up the tongue and rolled it back myself.  Problem is, no gloves to do that, and holding onto a snow-and-ice-covered-metal-trailer-tongue... not the best idea in frigid temperatures.  I actually think I might have mild frostbite/frostnip as my fingers (where I touched the tongue) are still painful, hot, red, tingling, and feel a bit weird.  Wonderful.

Got home, fed and watered the new female, and went to bed.

Oh but one more thing before I go.  That lady who was messaging about adopting Carlos that was having a hard time getting the adoption form back to me... still hasn't gotten it to me.  Now, this is a simple 2 page form, it is not that difficult.  But yet, I still don't have it, and I told her, I can't put him on hold for her until she gets it to me, cause she's already surpassed the two week holding period where she wouldn't need it.  So, I got a call about Carlos yesterday.  I still need to call them back, but I messaged the original lady and told her, hey, someone else is interested, how's the form going?  Still nothing.  Like, really?  I'm gonna call back that person today and see if they're still interested, but I feel like it's a bit ridiculous when people can't get back to me.  And really, when I think about it... why do I keep asking her if she's got it done?  If she can't be an adult and get it back to me without me babying her, do I want her to have a chin?  Possibly not.  So, if I don't have an adoption form by the time I get outta work today, Carlos will be "available" for the lady who called.