It's a soggy Saturday around here. My funspouse Martha and I sprang out of bed so early this morning this it stunned the dogs and cats. Stunned us, too, but we kept going.
We dashed from Oak Cliff to Cowtown for the Fort Worth Kennel Club Dog Show at the Will Rogers Complex. But let's get to that in a minute. 
On Thursday, as you may recall, I drove into West Texas, hoping to see sprawling pastures of bluebonnets. Nope -- no blooms yet.
And Friday, we went from Dallas to Longview in East Texas without seeing a single bluebonnet. But we did manage to photograph a wisteria vine/bush (I'm still unclear!) that had both the traditional blossoms and white blossoms -- don't see that often.
On Saturday morning, we sat in a cold barn in the Will Rogers Complex and watched our friend Maggie the Vizsla compete in the obedience trials -- oh, yeah, her handler, Jim Falk, is our friend and he was there, too. But, of course, Maggie does all the work and demonstrates all the discipline and she lets Jim trot along on the obedience routine and watch her every move. (You can read about Jim and Maggie and their lives in the April issue of Urban Animal -- see column to the right for info about how to get the magazine.)
If you haven't been to an obedience trial, it's a nifty thing. It's especially nifty if you have dogs at home that only begrudgingly follow commands such as "Don't" and "Stop" and "Oh, no, don't eat that!"
In the obedience trials, the dogs, perform sit and down and stay and they do gentle jumps and fetch little "dumbbells" that their partner has thrown.
You'll see ancient Labs competing against spry spaniels, taut Vizslas, well-fed Weimaraners, etc. They may not know they're competing, but they do know they're participating.
It's not your breed that matters, it's your ability to follow directions. Maggie, a young dog, finished in second place a mere point-and-a-half behind some bionic spaniel ... I'm kidding!
Who knows what one dog did and the other didn't do that the judge caught and the unskilled eye of the Maggiefan missed?
The most amazing thing is the test when the humans line their dogs up in a row in the ring and tell them to stay, then the humans leave the building (getting COMPLETELY out of sight). The dogs are expected to stay exactly where they are.
Heck, at our house, as soon as we were out of sight, our dogs would be up and looking through the refrigerator for some snacks. But these dogs are well-trained to sit and stay and, for the most part, they did Saturday morning, though rain was pelting the metal roof and there was thunder and the temptation to go find the security of their humans must have been great. Only one corgi broke ranks and tried to tip-toe after his mom.
Maggie held her place and made Jim (and fans) very proud.
We also ran into an old friend at the show--Chance the Samoyed with his "mom" Colleen FitzGerald of Duncanville. You may recall that Chance was the young dog ordered to death by a breeder in Little Rock, but saved by a veterinarian and funneled into Samoyed Rescue and, eventually, to Colleen.
Chance is a dog you can't help but hug. His judging was a little off Saturday -- "too big," was the explanation. You can't blame him -- he's the right size for himself.
He is larger than most Samoyeds, but, man alive, is he a handsome dog.
Maybe when some of us look at him we see all of his journey and not just him. He's come a long way from a malnourished, unsocialized, doomed pup. He is a prime example of what love and care can do for a dog.
Martha shot a lot of photos Saturday and we'll post some more of them as soon as she comes to -- uh, I mean, wakes from her well-deserved nap.
I've managed to spend most of the past 48 hours with Martha, our dogs, other dogs and our cats -- the only way our lives could be better would be if one of us won the Lotto and opened a critter ranch.
We were on the road most of yesterday but our dogs didn't particularly seem to mind. They had the TV and the remote and, if they wanted, they could phone out for a pizza. Our dogs aren't show dogs -- they're "demonstration dogs." You show them what you want them to do and they demonstrate their ability to decline.
