Part I, Part II, III and IV

Part I-Today was the Green Mountain Iron Dog competition (which was amazing! To be continued in Part II, III and IV). As I have described earlier, my son can be quite the handful so I planned to go after lunch and my daughter's nap. After a call from Dave around 10:00 telling me he'd forgotten to bring the ice cream my plan needed adjustment. By the time I'd gotten everyone loaded in the van I was feeling very sorry for myself. Sam had been not only disobedient, but laughingly behaved with disregard for his own and other's safety. His self preservation instinct finally kicked in when I stopped shouting at him and my affect went flat. I would have frightened myself had I been on his end. Cooperation soon followed. I backed up our van (that we have owned for for less than four months) to the barn door so I could load ice cream. As we pulled away I heard a noise and felt something. Being distracted and feeling pitiful, I thought, "Is that ice cream rolling around in the back? Weird." No. It was the side of our van scraping along the stone wall in front of our house. We now have an eight foot long scrape, dent, and gouges in the paint of our 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan. Fuck!

Part II-Iron Dog was really amazing! Dave does a great job organizing this event. One thing making this year different was location. There were plenty of places to observe the course while taking in a nice fall day on Lake Champlain. Demonstrations from other emergency services were engaging and interesting. This event felt more like a destination; there were places to hang out on a gorgeous day while enjoying a dog friendly event.

Part III, that Sam Dewey! He is so confident. After the drama of this morning I was spent. I was exhausted while watching him take off into the crowd, waiting to see what he would do. He as out of sight and unphased, the bugger! I felt relatively safe with a strong law enforcement presence and knowing a bloodhound from Massachusetts was in the competition if we needed her.

Part IV- Tazor tied for first place in the 100 yard dash with another Malinois! That dog is fast.