Thu, Sep 17 - Ready, Set ...
Ready, Set…
I got to sleep in today!!! This is the first day since I’ve left that I actually got to sleep in. All the way to 8:00! Wow. It was a great start to a busy day.
Thursday is always given over to practice at the site and team photographs. Normally, we do practice in the morning and then back to the hotel, change and go somewhere for team pictures. But this year, Team USA was the last team on the practice schedule, with our veterinary check time at 3:30 and our practice scheduled for 4:30. SO, that means we had to do team photos in the morning. With the periodic rains, last night at the team meeting, we couldn’t tell the team for sure that they would have photos this morning because we definitely wouldn’t have them out in the rain for it. So we left it hanging until this morning when we could check the weather. This morning dawned cloudy but dry, so the photos were scheduled for 10:00 am. Finding a place within walking distance of the hotel was tough, but we eventually found a quaint looking building, white with red shutters, that made a nice backdrop for the group photos. It felt really awkward walking to the site: 14 Americans in full uniform, carrying an American flag on a flagpole. Not exactly inconspicuous! The site was on a narrow side street, so it was a little challenging to get the teams set up and photos taken in between the occasional car coming down the street. But it worked out just fine. The cars passing seemed to take it in stride and slowed way down, crept past us and went on.
After we had taken the first batch of photos, our team photographer (and team member) Dee Anna Gamel, asked us to stay in formation (so to speak) and for the front row (which was mostly the large dog team) to make a noticeable space; a missing man formation—in honor of the teammate who is not with us any longer. We were all very somber during this part of the shoot as we thought of Geri and Focus.
Once the team photos were done, we went to another site near the hotel where there was a very cute little wishing well. This is where the individual photos were shot. It was right on the edge of a very busy street, so we were getting a lot of strange looks from the drivers going by and not a few horn honks! We finally got done with the photos around 11:30 or so.
The onsite practices had started with Team Austria at 8:00 am and many of our Team members wanted to go over and watch, so we arranged for the 3 vans to go over on a staggered schedule: Nancy’s van at 12:30; mine at 1:30; and Andy’s at 2:00. That way, people had some options. Some of the team watched the practice over the internet right here in the hotel, thanks to Agility Vision. But there’s nothing that can compare to watching it in person!
As we have done every years since 2001, Team USA has a private locker room. Some years they have just given it to us; this year we paid for it--something the Europeans find absolutely absurd. This allows our handlers to have a quiet, secure place to rest and for the dogs to relax. This year, our locker room is the closest one to where the competitors will enter the ring, which is really great. Its not so good for getting up into the stands. Our supporter section is about as far from our locker room as possible so it will take a bit more time and effort for team members to go spend time with the supporters after they run, but they will get there.
After everyone arrived at the site,they spent time buying their souvenirs: event shirts, caps, bags, etc. You always need to do this the irst day because they inevitably run out of sizes and choices. Our vet check was scheduled for 3:23 pm, but at 3:10, they came calling for us. Not all our handlers were in our locker room, so Nancy took the ones that were there, and I headed out to find the ones that weren’t. The ones missing was the big dog team, so I had a pretty good idea where they were. Sure enough, I found them high up in the bleachers, watching the other teams practice and working on what they would do. I hustled them down to get teir dogs and get to vet check. It all went very smoothly; the only question I heard about was one vet asked Channnan about Icon’s feet (they are a bit red from allergies), but nothing more. All of our small and medium dogs who had not been measured last year were sent to the measuring room (as was done with all the teams). Out of our 8 small/medium dogs, two had been done last year. But the rest passed with flying colors; now they won’t have to do that again. So, now we had about 30 minutes before our scheduled practice time. People spent the time walking their dogs out, stretching or massaging them, and just getting their dogs and themselves ready for a very intensive 16 ½ minutes. We are given 1.5 minutes per dog running, so with our 11 dogs, that added up to 16 ½ minutes.
Out on the floor, there were three sections set up on the floor. Each section had a defined set up that could not be changed: section 1 had the dogwalk and weaves along with jumps and the chute; section 2 had the AFrame, tire, and broad jump along with other jumps; and Section 3 had the see saw, a straight tunnel, table and spread jump. We had seen the set up last night while we were waiting for the coaches meeting and so were able to sketch it out on Clean Run, get it printed off for our teams, and they used that to plan their practices sequences. This way, when they got out on the floor, they could make the best use of the 5 ½ minutes they had in each section. We had a number of USA volunteers down on the floor to reset bars, chutes and change jump heights as well as one person in each ring assigned as a “traffic cop” to make sure only one dog was out working at a time in each section. Nancy and I floated and watched each section. Our teams did a fantastic job working out the sequences for themselves. They all knew what they wanted to work on during this time and set up the sequences to meet their needs. In total we had 16 ½ minutes of working time on the floor, so each team had 5 ½ minutes on each section. That may not sound like a lot of time, but try it sometime: find three other fiends, set up 3, 6-8 obstacle sequences, and work them for 16 ½ minutes. You’ll discover that this is a LOT of time. All the dogs were definitely tired by the time the final whistle blew!
The teams returned to the hotel about 5:30 in time to take care of the dogs and get ready for a 6:20 pm departure for team dinner. This is the one time during the trip that the team, and only the team (members, coaches, and Captain) has dinner alone. We went to a wonderful Italian restaurant. Nancy had preordered 8 different pizzas and 4 different pastas for a 6:45 delivery time and that restaurant had everything out exactly on time. And it as all really good! We had a good time socializing and laughing, relaxing before getting down to business tomorrow.
I ended my night taking long walk with Ashley and Luka; Channan and Icon; Marcus and Juice; Katie and Twix; along with Nancy and Ingrid. We walked down to and along the bike path that runs along the Rheine (the dogs couldn’t get to the water). It was a nice relaxing way to end the evening and really helped settle dinner.
Tomorrow things get serious—competition starts. Opening ceremonies begin at 8:30 and the first dog will be on the line at 10:22 (according to their schedule). First up will be Large Team Jumping. Following that will be Medium Team Jumping, Small Team Jumping; and Large Team Agility (Standard). So, by the end of the day tomorrow, we will know who the Large Team Champions are!
Wednesday, Sep 16 - Bregenz, Team Leader Meeting, Supporter Dinne
After our long day visiting the castles, I was really looking forward to sleeping in on our last day off. However, that was not to be. Nancy wanted me to be meet her and Andy at a 7:30 breakfast meeting to talk about the day’s schedule and what would go on at the Supporter Dinner that night. So, I was up at 7:00 and down to breakfast to start off the day. The meeting went quickly and I was back in the room by 8:00 to find Val just crawling out of bed. Lucky girl!
As this was our last day to do any sort of local sightseeing, we decided to go over to Bregenz, a nearby town, and take the cable car up to the top of the mountain. There was a Bird Show advertised and some others who had seen it the day before said it was well worth seeing. So, at about 9:30, we loaded back up in the van and headed down the road to Bregenz. Faithful George got us there without any wrong turns. After a slight adventure in parking (our vans are really tall), we bought our tickets and got on the next gondola to the top. It was a beautiful trip up, giving us panoramic views of Lake Lucerne (also called Bodensee here in Austria) and the surrounding mountains. The Bird show started at 11:00 am, so we have about 45 minutes to wander around. About 30 minutes before the show, we started down towards where the bird show would be . What we hadn’t realized was that there was a wildlife park at the top as well with a few different animals, ranging from bunnies to wild boar to ibex and mountain sheep! They were all beautiful and pretty indifferent to visitors.
We got down to the Bird show about 20 minutes before show time. That gave us some time to admire allthe different birds in their mews. There were owls, hawks, falcons, eagles, and vultures. The owls, hawks, falcons, and vultures were all in cages. The eagles, however, were just tethered to stumps on the hillside. You couldn’t walk up to them of course, but they weren’t caged. They all looked very healthy with shiny feathers. These were the birds that would be used in the show. After walking around the mews for awhile, we took seats on the benches and waited for the show to start.
Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the whole narration was in German. So, we could watch and admire the birds, but had absolutely no idea of what was being said. We had great seats, mostly because we had asked when we bought our tickets where would be the best place to sit. There really wasn’t a bad seat anywhere in the house. The bird handlers made sure they held their birds long enough for us to get great photos and when they gave demonstrations of the birds’ hunting styles. At one point, one of the falcons decided to be a bit naughty and ignore her recall signal, flying off out of the demonstration area and out of sight for a bit, but she eventually came back and landed on her handlers arm. Probably the most awesome of the birds was the vulture. All the birds would fly right over the audience, some of them very close above. In fact, at one point when a little owl was released from her handler, I actually got hit a glancing blow in the back of the head! Twice! But it was all a lot of fun. Sure wish we could have understood what they were telling us about the birds though. The show ended and we were faced with a really steep climb back up the hill to where the cable cars would depart from. That was the hardest hike I’ve had yet! I was really puffing by the time we reached the top. Of course part of that is that we were also at 1064 meters altitude (about 3100 feet) and this little girl is used to sea level! After a quick ride down, the two vans split up. One to take one team member to find a dentist cause she lost a temporary crown right when we arrived at the cable car in the morning; the other down into Bregenz for some shopping and wander around time. What we didn’t realize at that point was that in Austria, most shopping closes from noon – 2 pm. And of course, what time did we get there? Just after noon. But everyone still had a good time. The restaurants and bakeries were open and so we stopped into a bakery for lunch, then spent the rest of the time wandering around. We all met back up at the van at 2 and headed back to Lustenau and the hotel.
Nancy, Andy, and I left to attend the Team Leaders meeting over at the event site about 5:15 pm. This meeting is where the event organizers go over any particulars about this event such as: no food on the practice floor during the Thursday practice; how the starting procedure would work; introduction of the two judges; and where we turned in our team running order and picked up our team credentials and the competitor’s bibs with numbers. Normally, this is also when we received the event catalog, but not this time. Not sure why not. This meeting has always been on Thursday night in the past, which is why our Supporter Dinner is scheduled on Wed. But for whatever reason this year, they changed it to Wed. So, the dinner, originally scheduled for 7 was slipped to 7:15 and we hoped that he Team Leader meeting that started at 6:00 would go quickly! It wasn’t too bad—we got back to the hotel at 7:40. They had started without us, which is good, but they were only on the appetizer buffet. The food was incredible! And, in true European tradition, we had a very leisurely dinner. The different courses were separated by speeches from Andy, the Team and the Coaches. Andy introduced the team members to the Supporters; gave thanks to our sponsors and those who did so much work behind the scenes but for some reason could not travel with us (Sharon Anderson and Toni Osojnicki) and then introduced the coaches. Up next was the Team representative, Karen Holik who read off the Top 10 Reasons Why Nancy Gyes Had to Coach the World Team Again Next Year”. There were many inside jokes that probably went over the heads of the supporters, but the team and coaches all thought they were very funny. At that point the dinner buffet was set up and we took a break in the speeches to eat yet again! The final part of the speeches was Nancy talking to the Supporters and playing a little trivia with everyone. When she was done, the dessert buffet was set up. See the pattern of the night? Our night ended with a brief team meeting so we could go over what we learned at the Team leaders meeting. We also used this time to get everyone refocused on why we are here. Everyone left the banquet room, with high spirits and ready to get started tomorrow.
Tues, Sep 15 - Sightseeing in Germany - Updated
The day was planned for me to take a bunch of the team members to see two beautiful castles in Germany, about 1 hour 45 minutes away. But when we started to gather everyone in the morning, people kept opting out (someone spread the story that it was a 3 hour drive and so many came up with reasons not to go). So, in the end, 7 of us went, only two team members and myself from the Team side, plus Val Rutledge, a canine massage therapist from Florida who is also my roommate (I’ve known her for a few years and she is the one who runs one of the camps I attend in Florida each year); plus four other supporters. Due to liability reasons, only those associated with the team rode in the Team Van (myself (driver); plus Marcy Mantell (Wave, Small Dog Team) and Val); Paulette Schwartzendruber (Rush, medium team sheltie) and her friend followed in one car; and three other supporters followed in their car. This way, it kept things most flexible as far as if someone wanted to send more or less time than the others, no one was trapped.
We got away from the hotel about 9:30; our first stop was to “drop” one of the supporters off to pick up their rental car, but as things turned out, they wanted to caravan with us (I had the GPS) and so we ended up waiting about 20 minute for them to get their car. Now we were in downtown Dornbirn, and so we decided to drive by the event site just to get look at it. So that took us another 20 minutes. Our final delay was when I took a critical look at the gas tank and decided I’d really prefer to start this trip off with a full tank. So we stopped at a gas station. Val jumped out of the van to fuel it up, and then we spent another 5 minutes figuring out how to get the damn gas cap off! We never did get it. Had to call on one of the supporters (Eric) who had stronger hands than we did to twist it off. He took hold and gave it a might PUSH in and it came off easily. So, sheepishly, Val fueled the car and as she was finished, I hopped out to close up the fuel tank, only to have diesel fuel pour out onto my new running shoes! Not a good start to the day. But finally, we got on the road to our destination about 10:45.
George (my GPS) got us out of Dornbirn easily but then started to take us on what looked like a whole lot of back roads, but we kept following him. We ended up off the main highway and heading across the German countryside on small, two lane, twisty turny roads for what seemed like forever! But, as things turned out, we had the chance to see a lot of beautiful farm countryside with lots of rolling green, green hills; very quaint farmhouses who almost all had absolutely stunning window boxes. Some kind of colorful flowers decorated every window of the houses. Really wanted to get a photo of them, but there was absolutely NO place to safely pull off those little narrow roads in order to shoot a picture! So, we just admired as we drove by.
We arrived at the castle area about 12:30. After parking and figuring out where to get our tickets, we bought a “Royal Ticket” that got us into both castles with guided tours in English. Each tour had an assigned number and we knew from our friends who had been on this trip a few days ago that, if you miss your tour, you are just out of luck. The tours were conducted in English or German and since my German is limited to yes, no, thank you and “one beer and one bratwurst please”, I didn’t want to end up on a German language tour. This history of the two castles we went to today are linked. The first castle, Hohenschwangau Castle, is privately owned; the second, Neuschwanstein Castle, is owned by the state. Both castles were very impressive; Neuschwanstein Castle is what Walt Disney patterned the main Castle at Disneyland after. The area the castles were in is called Schwangau and the heraldic symbol is the swan (schwan), so of course there were swans all throughout the décor and furnishings of both castles. After purchasing your tickets, you have the option of taking a horse carriage, a bus, or walking up to the lower castle, which is Hoenschwangau. We elected to walk to that one. It was a beautiful day and the walk was only about 10 minutes, although it was a steep climb up to the castle. For the tours, when you buy your tickets, you are assigned a tour number based on the language and whenyou bought your ticket. If you miss your tour, you end up on a tour of a different language. Since my German is limited to yes, no, thank you, and “one beer and a bratwurst please”, I knew I’d better be on time for the English tour!
While we waited for the tour, we wandered the grounds of the castle, admiring the panoramic views of the valley below the castle. It was just stunningly beautiful, as was the view of the mountains behind the castle. The photos I took simply don’t do it justice. I knew that would happens which is why I also bought a CD with 76 different photos of the castles! The tour of Hohenschwangau was very good. We had a very articulate tour guide who spoke excellent English with almost no trace of accent. But, as I have found with other similar tours in the past, it doesn’t take long for all the rooms to start to look alike. In these cases, it was lots of gilded silver, very ornate bronze, lots of paintings on the walls and displays of extravagant gifts given to the king. It was interesting, but I was glad when it was done. It was such a beautiful day that I was glad to get out into the sun. I was also hungry! So, we had about 65 minutes until the tour of Neuschwanstein and it was advertised as a 40 minute walk. So that gave us about 25 minutes to grab something to eat. Val and I decided we were going to make the walk up the hill (mountain?); the others took the easy way out and opted to take the bus. So Val and I said we’d meet them at the top and headed down to the bratwurst stand to grab some lunch. It was really good! Hot, fresh bun, and really spicy mustard. We munched on the brat as we walked up the more level part of the climb. Then, we headed up the more strenuous part. It really wasn’t too bad for us, but we are both in pretty good shape, although we were both breathing pretty hard by the time we reached the top. There were a lot more people coming down than were going up. And most of the ones going up were fairly young. We met a young woman from Scotland who was hiking around Europe with her boyfriend. She had a really big pack on her back which undoubtedly made the climb even harder. It actually only took us about 20 minutes to make the climb. The path was wide and smooth; it was the same path as the horse carriages took, so we had to be careful where we walked—not to avoid the horses, but to avoid their leftovers. When we reached the top, it was worth the walk! The castle looked like something out of a fairy tale. We had about 20 minutes before our tour, so we admired the views, took some photos, and waited.
The tour guide for this castle was not nearly as good, but gave some interesting facts about the castle. This one was much more ornate and much darker than the first. The tour lasted about 20 minutes and then we headed up to Mary’s Bridge, a footbridge over a nearby gorge. It faces the south side of the castle which is very striking, but unfortunately for us, right now that side of the castle is being renovated and so all we got to see was scaffolding. We still got some good photos and had fun peering over the edge down into the stream /river below. There was a beautiful waterfall almost directly under the bridge. It was a little eerie to step out on the bridge (with the 100 or so others who were there).
It was now time to head back down the hill as it was getting late and I really didn’t want to be driving back in the dark. As on the way up, Val and I chose to walk down while the others took the bus. There were two options for the way down: one steeper and slipperier than the other, but it was faster, so we opted for the steeper one. We both knew we’d pay for it tomorrow! But we made the 40 minute walk down in 12 minutes and ended up right at the car park virtually right next to our van. Of course, that’s when we realized we hadn’t set any particular meeting point to rejoin our friends. So we started walk back UP towards the ticket plaza and met up with everyone.
The drive home was just about the reverse of the trip out except for the last 30 minutes. But it was still mostly 2 lane road through beautiful country. We got back to the hotel at 7:30, only to find the parking lots overflowing with cars, mostly due a big buss that was parked diagonally across th little lot, taking up most of the space and forcing all the other cars to park every which way they could. The German Team had arrived. So, after looking around, I spotted some space in a corner, next to the motorbikes that I thought I could squeeze into. I just hoped I would be able to extract it in the morning when cars had gone.
Monday, Sep 14 - Practice Day 2
Today we were back out at the practice site at 9:00 am for our final practice until Thursday. Again, all the team members looked great: Coach Nancy put up a tricky course with a very challenging weave pole entrance (an off course jump sitting very close to the pole entrance just inviting the handler to try and shape the dog’s approach). Caught all the small dogs and a couple of the others. They worked through that and then went on to run a jumpers course and finished up with some drills and bounce jumping. We ended practice at about noon. At that point, each of the teams took their vans and went off to do what ever they chose. The large and medium teams headed back to Dornbirn and the hotel. The small dog team (my van) wanted to stay in the area and do a little sightseeing. So, we went to the nearby town of Bad Ragaz, which is a spa town (Bad (rhymes with nod) means “bath” in german). The town was very pretty and there was sculptures all over the place. Every street corner seemed to have some type of statue or other art piece. Even the river had pieces suspened over it! We spent about 3 ½ hours wandering around Bad Ragaz before heading back to the hotel. By that time, dogs and handlers were getting that “thousand yard stare” look in their eyes. They were all ready for a nap. A quick stop at a local store to buy Austrian Chocolate and we loaded up the van and headed home. Tomorrow, we are going over to Germany to visit Neuschwanstein Castle which is the most visited castle in Europe and is what Disney’s Cinderella’s castle is based on. Hope the weather is good!
Photos from today's activities are up on my Facebook page.
Sunday, Sep 13 - First Full Day
My day started off with the screech of the alarm clock. When I turned out the lights at 11:00 last night, I knew I didn't have to get up until 7:30 and so thought that 8 1/2 hours would be plenty and I'd wake up easily. Wrong! My eyes absolutely didn't want to open. I slapped the alarm off and turned over. 10 minutes later, the persisant little thing went off again and I gave up and got up. Of course, having told a friend I would meet them for breakfast at 8:00 was also an impetus to get out of bed. Plus, by staying in bed much later, it would make getting over jet lag even harder.
I met my friends and went down to breakfast. In Europe, breakfast is usually included with the cost of the hotel and here, its a very nice breakfast buffet with a really nice range of options: anything from scrambled eggs, meats, a wide range of excellent bread, fruit, cheese, cereal and juices. It was a great start to the day. Following breakfast, I joined a couple of the small dog team members for a walk along the Rhein, just getting out and stretching our legs before heading out for our first practice.
The first challenge of practice was getting there. We had printed directions from the hall we were going to,but no specific address. All the rental vans driver had our GPS units; Nancy Gyes (coach), Andy Hartman (Captain) and I were drivers and we each brought our personal units along. So we loaded in coordinates we found on the agility hall's website and were comparing these with the printed directions; they were close, but at one point, the GPS wanted to take us a totally different way. But my argument was that there was probably a reason for the directions they published, so we went that way. I ended up leading the pack, despite my past record of losing my followers. So, off we went. The first part of the trip was simple: get on the highway (we had to cross back into Switzerland) and go for 33 miles. Once we got off the highway, we were still doing good: we made the final turn onto a very narrow, 2 lane farm road. This road seemed to lead into nowhere. We were driving through cornfields, with no likely looking places for agility in site. We kept going, and going (sort of like vehicular engergizer bunnies) and going. Finally, I pulled off to the side and the other two vans pulled up beside me. We talked about it and decided to just keep going. There was an intersection coming up and, as we approached it, we saw the very small sign for the Agilityhalle to the right. Whew! We were running out of road, heading right into the Rhein! But we found the Halle and it was a very nice practice site.
The reason we were practicing at site so far out, seemingly in the middle of nowhere was because the flooring from this particular hall is the exact surface the dogs will be running on during the event. They will be taking up this carpet and moving it over to the Messestadium on Moday afternoon, immediately following our practice.
The team worked for about 3 hours, running a number of standard courses, working to get the kinks from travel out. Some of the teammembrs had just arrived this morning, so were practicing on very little rest. They all did an awesome job! The dogs took just a very little time to adust to the surface. Contacts were absolutely solid, jumping was great and all around, everyoe looked totally ready and confident. Camaderie and morale seemed high as we finished up and headed back to the hotel.
Unfortunately, my jinx took over again as I lost my followers at the very first turn. George, my GPS, showed me a different way home than the way we came. So I followed his directions, and, as we made that first fateful turn, I noticed that Nancy, who was in the van right behind us, hadn't pulled out on the road to follow me, so I (wrongly) assumed her GPS was giving her different directions or that she decided to return the same was we came. Nor did I see Andy follow either, so I also assumed he followed Nancy. It wasn't until we had returned to the motel, gone up to our rooms, changed, and were on our way out to dinner that Nancy's van showed back up to the motel. Apparently, her GPS took them some very strange way home--one that involved a lot of extra distance and many wrong turns. We can't quite figure that one out since we have the same system. All I can figure is that I purchased the 2010 European Map updates and she didn't, so maybe there was a difference there. Well, we'll get to try it again tomorrow. Maybe this time, I'll get it right.
We finished out the day going to a little Italian restaurant for dinner. Now its time to try to get to sleep cause we have an 8:15 am departure back to the practice site.
Fri/Sat, Sep 11/12 - Getting There is Half the Battle
Friday, Sep 11 – Today started with a REALLY early wake up – about 3 am. It was one of those nights where I try to get to sleep early (didn’t happen) since I had to getup so early. Finally managed to get to sleep somewhere around 11ish. Then about 3 am, I woke up and spent the next 45 minutes snoozing in that state where you are afraid to really go back to sleep for fear of oversleeping the alarm. It was so early that when I got up to take my shower, not even the puppy woke up.
This trip feels very strange in that this is the first time in all the years I’ve travelled to this event, that I am travelling totally alone then entire way. In the early years under Sharon Anderson’s leadership, it was mandated that no Team Member travelled alone. In fact for the first 3 years, the entire team traveled on the same aircraft. But that was 98,99, and 2000, before 9/11 and the world changed. Then we went through a number of years where we had a couple of east coast departure choices, but those of us from the West Coast still had to fly east to meet up with the Team. Eventually, as flights got harder to find and the airlines set greater restrictions on the number of dogs in cargo, we were given more options about our routes of travel. Many times it depended on where we were going. But since 2003, West Coast team members travelled from the West Coast without having to transit an east coast gateway.
Since 2006, I’ve accompanied the team as Assistant Coach and, in 06, 07, and 08, I was assigned escort duty” for teammembers from the East Coast, so I still ended up flying east. Up until this year, I flew out a day early and spent the night on the East Coast so I didn’t have to worry about missing my flight, but this year, with money so tight (I financed my own way this year), I opted to be brave and hope the airlines and weather all cooperated. So far so good. The flight out of Sacramento departed right on time and I have 2.5 hours in Atlanta to make my connection. So, I should have plenty of time to exchange some money and easily make it to my gate.
One of the toughest parts of this trip is leaving my dogs, especially my baby dog. I know Jake will take great care of her and all the rest, but since the day she came home, we’ve never been apart for a night. I doubt she’ll care all that much. We’ve hopefully taught her that its OK to be alone. And, I want her to be OK with me not being there. But its still hard. Will have to kidnap some of the Team Shelties at times to get my Sheltie Fix! Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any goldens in the competition (last year Canada had one), so I’ll just have to grin and bear it.
The connection in Atlanta went smoothly and the very long flight to Zurich departed right on time. It was 9 hours and 45 minutes. Arrival in Zurich was quick. In just about 30 minutes after landing I had cleared passport control; collected my bags and cleared customs. Now I just had to wait for the two team members I was meeting: Ashley Deacon with his pyreanean shepherd, Luka from San Jose; and Paulete Swarchzendruber with her sheltie, Rush, from Massachusetts. I had about an hour to kill until Ashley arrived, so I picked up the rental van (fortunately both the rental car counter and the garage were on site at the airport) and loaded my bags into it so I didn’t have t haul them around with me. By the time that was all done, Ashle’s flight had arrived. Luka was very glad to get out of her crate. It had been about a 17 hour trip for her from the time she was loaded in her crate iin San Jose until she got out here in Zurich. Once we met up with up Paulette and her party, we had a 90 km drive to our hotel in Dornbirn, Austria, just over the Swiss/Austrian border. It should have taken about 70 minutes but we hit major traffic to the point of our 70 minute drive taking 2.5 hours! We were all really glad to find our hotel and get settled.
