Sheepdog Competition

On Thursday Josh called me and asked if we had plans he didn't know about for the Holiday weekend.

Given that my version of "making plans" these days has more to do with napping and eating than.....well anything else, he would've been safe betting that my answer was a slightly hysterical "You actually think I'm going to initiate either one of us getting off the couch this weekend? Good try babe, but you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming from my very comfy couch."

But Josh is a Mormon, so he doesn't bet.
Also he's a good husband so he pretends I'm still fun even though I'm not.

I (very hesitantly) told him we had no plans, and asked what he was thinking.

"Dude! (yes, he calls me dude. It's how I know he thinks I'm lovely and beautiful and charming and elegant and feminine....cuz what's more romantic than 'dude'?) I just saw a sign for some sheep-competition-dog-fest thing. It's at Soldier Hollow this weekend, can we go?"

I sat on the other end of the line unsuccessfully trying not to laugh out loud at him. What kind of person wants to go to a "sheep-competition-dog-fest" anyway? Josh is allergic to dogs. We don't have dogs. We don't have sheep. We don't even know what sheepdogs do. And we certainly don't care about the festival of all things relating to sheepdogging.

Finally through my laughing I told him I thought he was "so weird!" and that "yeah sure. we can do that if you want to." You should know how proud* I am of myself for having such a great attitude and laughing instead of crying and saying 'yeah sure' instead of 'over my dead body'. Sometimes I really am a good wife.

Turns out a lot of people not only knew the International Sheepdog Festival exists, but they go to this thing. I know because all of you (Rachel) blogged about it and I saw you there (Felecia) and we waited in line behind you to get our lunch (crazy guy with a tattoo) and we sat behind you on the bleachers (old guy with a big butt) and you parked too close to our car (dirtbag in a big fat truck), and you took all the seats at the lunch tables (grouchy lady who whined about teh wind), and you were as excited as I was about the port-a-handwashing-stations outside the cleanest port-a-potties I've ever seen (mother of 3 kids under 5 years old).

Also I know you were there because we stole the last seats at the Amazing Canines show and felt guilty when you looked as hot and tired as we felt, but we didn't offer you our seats because we earned them. Also because we're not the nice seat-offering kind of people you wish we were. Sorry. I'm pregnant and I don't care that you've been dragging around your 2-year-old looking for "lost sheep" so you can get a free ice cream cone all day long. But we're not going to talk about that because it makes me look bad.


We started the day with the splash dogs competition because we heard (OK I read it on Rachel's blog) that it was the coolest part. And I'd hate to be grouchy during the coolest part. When you plan to spend the day out in the hot sun waddling around crowds of people grouchy is pretty much inevitable. These dogs freakin' rocked. They looked beautiful jumping (see?)

Except those that were pansies and wouldn't jump. They did not look beautiful - probably because they weren't jumping. Sissies.

These guys tried to get this dog to jump for a good 5 minutes, patting the end of the platform, "go go go!" they'd shout. The threw stuff into the pool, they tried to make him run off the edge without noticing that he was jumping off a cliff, but this dog wasn't going for it. Way too smart for that. He walked around to the ramp intended to let him out of the pool and walked into the pool that way to get his toys.

We watched lots of other dog stuff (mostly cheesy and geared toward young kids), the actual sheepdog part (some guy actually came from South Africa to compete...SOUTH AFRICA!), talked to people and got a wicked sunburn.

The day ended with the decision to veto Swiss Days (didn't really feel like looking at expensive crafts I can't afford to buy) in favor of stopping at 7-11 for the greatest slurpee of all time. Doesn't matter the flavor, (but it didn't cost $10, and it would have at Sheepdog Land) just matters that it was at the end of a VERY VERY long hot day.

In all I was really pleasantly surprised at how un-lame the Sheepdog Festival was (even though I'm still laughing that we spent Labor Day there). Will I go next year? Haul my 1 year old child around in the hot sun and hope he's entertained by a dog running up a hill to gather the sheep (for like 20 mintues)?

No. Absolutely not. Even if I'm trying to convinvce Josh that we still do fun things. Even after all these years.

If he needs convincing, we'll go to the beach. Or the zoo. Or the grocery store. See? I'm cool.

*Pride is a sin, but you wanna know what else I'm proud of? Being smart enough to just take a picture of the big sign with the schedule instead of paying $5 for a program. Cheapskate extraordinaire.