Sometimes it doesn't pay to look ahead

I had an attack of organizing fever this week.  Organizing fever can manifest in numerous ways, usually involving purchases of either binders with lots of labeled dividers or, in its most time consuming form, lots of storage boxes.  Last week, the fever expressed itself in calendar form.  I found a Word calendar template that displayed the year in 4 months per letter-sized page.  I could type into and color each day’s cell.  My upcoming year’s show schedule at a glance on 3 8½ by 11 pieces of paper!  Cool.

I set to work filling in all the obedience trials and hunt tests within a reasonable driving distance.  The OB shows I definitely plan to attend were shaded orange, the OB shows I might attend were shaded yellow; the Hunt tests I definitely plan to attend were shaded blue, and the Hunt tests I might attend were shaded green.

Schedule, shmedule. Let's play!

There is a downside to displaying one’s year on three pieces of paper.  It can make you feel like the 'possum crouched in the middle of the road attempting, with its midget marsupial brain, to understand the headlights hurdling towards him.  My collision with the show schedule starts in mid-April and I won’t have time to contemplate the wreckage until near the end of June, when I’ll have only a couple of shows until the pile-up of autumn shows.

That’s the problem of living in a place with seasons.  The long winter is a nice break from the show schedule when you can train without the pressure of an imminent show, assuming you can find a place and time to train that doesn’t involve snow, frozen fingers, or darkness.  But winter ends (hooray!) and most of the shows get crammed into the spring and early summer with another pulse in fall after the summer heat has passed.  From no shows to a show nearly every weekend, if you can stand it, for three months.

April 13 will be Alder’s debut in Utility.  (Mine, too.) Maple will debut in Open.  Maple will be only the second dog I've shown in Open, but after the 24 shows it took me and Alder to get his CDX, I feel like a pro at that level.   Maple's first hunt test of the year is a NAHRA trial towards the end of May, followed by an AKC show the first weekend on June and another AKC test the second week of June.  I could have gone to yet another hunt test the third week of June, but our club agility trial is that weekend and I'll be working at the trial from 10 am Friday until the equipment guy pulls out with his trailer late on Sunday. 

Will the dogs be ready?  Not as much as I’d like, but I know Alder always enjoys going to shows. Maple is probably more ready for Open (and Utility for that matter!) than Alder in terms of knowing the exercises, but there’s that old bugaboo of her anxiety around traveling.  Am I ready?  Just think of me as playin’ ‘possum.