MORNING

Dis morning we got she up early. See evry morning we gets her up about 3:30 to go out. Dis morning we let she sleep cuz she lets us ousside lass night about eleben. Late. Cuz she open da dore to let we ousside about earlyer an clost it right away an say NOBODY GOIN NOWHERE: SKONK. We nose dat.
Not sure whut dat is but we nose dem alla time sometime reel close. I think they them liddel kittie things what are black an white that look like fat kitties but dont smell like kitties. Mr. Cooper Sir he say stay way away frum dem. Enyways dat why we didnt go ousside the youshuall time bout ...whaddebber.

So we ledder sleep dis morning until bout 4:30 den we gotta go out. So we did. We do dis ebber morning and den go back to bed in we crates scept Llewis he get to sleep wif no crate and ob course Cooper too. She say me an Conley too much likely get inna fite in da middel ob da nite an den she hafta kill boff of we. We think she kidding. But we ok inna crates juss in case she not.
Gidder up at 4:30 an we goes out an comes in an gets a cookie an den we go back inna crates and she go beke to bed. BUT.

See, dis da prollem.

An I meens, dat reely da prollem. Now we awl nose Cooper he got heer first. We nose too dat no madder how hard she try Cooper she nummer won dog and we not. We nose dis. Specially me, Nigel. But it wrinkle. (Whut, Llewis? Oh...) But it rankel.

So ebber mornin latelely Cooper he clime inna bed wif MomPerson  affer we goes out an she lay dere wif HIM and cuddel and pet and coo an all dat disgustin stoff she shud be doin wif we. An da worser part is dis is all about three feets from we crates.

So I komplane. Frum dat crate I goes
Oh pleese. Oh pleese. Me. Pet me. He nuffin. Oh Pleese. I be good. Pleese.
and I keeps it up. Affer a bit she say shuddup, Nigel. So I nose she heer me.
So I quite for a few den start agin.
She try so hard not to pretent she heer me. She say nuffin for a long time so I gets louder. She say SHUDDUP NIGEL. So Ise quite. Den affer a minute I says
Oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeeese lemme out. Lemme out too. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeese.
So finley she tell Cooper Dats All and he git down an leeb. (He prollem be dat he axshully do what she say. He nebber lern not to. Sumfin in he brain I fink. You open da gate an say no go thro an we be 6 blox away an he still stanning in da yart barkin YOU CANT DO DAT. But we can.)

(See he juss wating for we to do sumfin wrong, den he bark an tell on we.)

Enyways so I starts up agin and dis time dere a big, loud SIIIIIGGGGGHHH from da bed and SHE GETS UP! And whuts more she heet up some special beef stoff she mede and mixes it wiff are kibbutz.....(.Llewis what now? I done did ebberfing rite. I ...itsa whut? Oh. So whatre dese? Dey are? Ok.
She mix da stoff wif our KIBBLE. (Sorry.))))) (dem fun to play wif.)

And now we up. She up. And we up. Sort of. So youall hab a nice day cuz it look like dis gonna be a good one for we. Full tumies and bin ousside an no skonks and ebberfing. Best ob da day to youse.

Love frum Nigel an Llewis an Conley an eben Cooper.

FALLING BACK WITH DOGS

The whining started at ...wait. What? 2:30 in the morning? Awww, come on doggies. No. It's 3:30, the usual time. But it isn't. Four dog biological clocks, artificially and painstakingly re-set six months ago agree that it is 3:30 in the morning and time for their middle-of-the-night trip for pee and a biscuit. (Not spoiled, these boys.) Then, between four and six in the morning it is time for breakfast. Or now, between three and five in the morning.
This ain't right.

But this is the type of expression that greets me when I finally haul myself up to turn on the light.
Pleading
Resigned
Accusatory
Intelligent
Demanding.

No sane dog, this expression says, would change the clocks. If you change the clocks, this face tells me, then be prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions. And the consequence today is:
we want to go pee and get a biscuit.

So out they go. I stagger to the back light and turn it on and view four dogs, all with raised legs. Moments later they are at the door. They rush in, get in their crates and wait for their reward for prying me out of bed into the cold, dark, unfriendly artificially-timed middle of the night.
We are good. I turn out the light and creep back into bed.
*****

The whining begins at...no. No. This cannot be. I was just up wasn't I just up?  It is pitch black outside. It used to be light at this time, which is....I squint blindly looking for the lights of the clock across the room. The clock says it is 4 in the morning. Something heavy is pressing down on me, shoving my ample body into the thin mattress. Something hot, hot and wet drips on my bare neck EEEEeeuuuwww! Attempting to sit up I re-focus my attention.

There is a huge black dog in my face.
He says:
It is time to get up and feed us. I, who have no crate, have been elected to remind you that your artificial time system, changed though you THINK it is, is not and WE, the majority in this household, say it is time to get out of bed and feed us, freshen our water, let us out of our crates into the day, even though according to you, it is far too early.

I get up. There is anticipatory whimpering and the sound of tails happily hitting the sides of crates.
SHE LIVES!
I feed everyone. I water everyone. I let them out. I sigh and moan and glare at the clock. It is an obscene time of day according to the clock but the  Basset Alarms have spoken. About the time they are used to the new schedule, it should be time to re-set the clocks again.
I get dressed. Turn on the coffee. Glare at the clocks.
The dogs, tummies full, thirst sated, morning ablutions complete do what they do best.

So much for the Government mandated "time change".

GETTING THE GROOVE BACK

Trying to get things settled again and think forward. Hard to do. I keep going back and looking at the horse photos and thinking of all the ones I missed-- all the 8 hitches, and yeah, Susie wanted me to stand outside the barn in the morning and photograph the horses being walked, and I didn't, because it was cold and I'm a wuss. And the people I didn't take photos of, and the dogs I missed...

And all the questions I had that I never asked. And yes, they dock the tails when the foals are very little--a day or two old or maybe even before that I am not sure at all. It is similar to removing dewclaws on a puppy which is done at 3 days. Not all of them are docked but for halter classes they are. This is a handsome little filly.
While the Judge looks at all of the horse, the rear is the part we saw the most. I think it was our seating...
There were professional photographers there running around in the ring. Two that I saw. One was French altho he spoke English.

Just like always, the Percherons have sheets and blankets that they wear a lot of the time when they are not working. Some had hoods (I do not know the proper term) as well, as did this one. Several belonging to one stable had wild hoods-- zebra prints and geometric designs. I tried to photograph them but ended up deleting those because you really could not tell what you were looking at. Photography in the barn is always a bit trickier than outside, plus these were black horses (for the most part) in a dark place.... This was early in the morning. Wake-up walk. The horse is a colt or filly, not nearly grown

Again this is early morning. Someone walks the horses and someone cleans the stalls. Then they are fed and watered. There was a lot of traffic in the barns so early in the morning. Intersections were always jamming up with horses waiting to come back in and horses going out and coming around the corners, so everyone was especially alert, or tried to be.

And then there was the job of cleaning the horses-- some methods more orthodox than others,(I had a photo in here of a young man vacuuming a horse. However, he is a minor and I do not have waiver and so decided not to use it. He was standing on a bench vacuuming the back of the horse. Use your imagination.) and inspecting and cleaning and polishing the harnesses. Worth thousands of dollars, these pieces of equipment are kept absolutely spotless, cleaned before and after use, inspected for wear and tear.

And finally, they are off to the ring.

MEETING STRANGE DOGS

While I was in Des Moines I witnessed an interesting situation. A man came into the Hospitality suite with his intact Doberman. Now. A lot of people bring dogs to watch the tack or the trucks, so some of these dogs are very sweet until you try to walk into their territory. This was a big, handsome, intact male Dobe and by his body language he was clearly an alpha dog. I was sitting in a chair. I said hello to him, rubbed his ears and when he seemed not very interested, let it go.
Susie went over and also talked to him, (he was on a leash) and he was less stand-offish with her.
One of the volunteers was seated behind a table in front of which the dog was standing, very alert. She stood, cooed at the dog, placed her hands on the table and leaned forward to talk to him. Immediately, he stiffened. I watched very carefully because the room was crowded. The volunteer continued to lean forward, looking directly at the dog who by then had began staring back, and cooed and gurgled at him.
Nothing in the dog's physical appearance suggested friendliness. Ears up, tail up, on toes, perfectly still, staring. And then I heard it., The very low, almost inaudible rumbles. Someone started to reach to pet the dog and I shook my head and said "Not now" and then told the volunteer to look away and sit down in a tone that left no room for argument. As soon as she broke her gaze the dog relaxed, and stopped growling.

Later I told her never to stare at a dog, particularly a dog like that. She had no clue. Absolutely stunned. No wonder people get bitten!

This little dog I never touched. She did not seem interested in being friends and I have been nailed by enough tiny dogs to be a bit wary.

I didn't get photos of the Cattle dogs, or the Swiss Mountain dog (who was a sweetie.)

There were two Corgis at least-- the other that I saw was a tri.
This was dinnertime the first day.
They said she never gets people food and she never stops trying, which made me think maybe she does. (Get people food) since the behavior should be extinguished if it is never rewarded.

I was also surprised at the number of horses whose owners were adamant that the horses never get treats-- not apples or carrots or peppermint (Horses have a sweet tooth.) I used to know a Saddlebred who drank Nehi Tropical Punch.

And of course, there was Flash.

                               The blur you see is Flash's tail.

HITCHING UP (more horse stuff)

The last day we were there, (at the 2010 World Percheron Congress) as evening approached, we had to move the car because the street on which we were parked, right by the hospitality suite, was also right outside one of the horse barns where Priefert harnessed their horses. You can (or someone can, certainly not I) harness the horses up in the barn but you cannot hitch them and drive them through the barn. It would be horribly dangerous, as, being horses, they DO now and then spook.
One Percheron spooking is a real handful. Having a team of anywhere from 2 to 8 horses spook (all it takes is one to start it) would be tragic.

So while I waited for Susie to appear, I began photographing the Priefert people hitching up:

This is the beginning. One of the wheel team horses has been harnessed and brought out. Now he is attached to the wagon. There are, of course, real names for every part of the harness and wagon but I am ignorant of what they are. I know what I THINK they are, but am not sure enough to write it down. The other horse will be hitched where the woman is standing.

In the meantime, while they wait for the second horse in the wheel team, the polishing and cleaning of both horse and harness and wagon continues, unabated. The amount of work that goes into hitching a team for show is mind-boggling. The attention to detail is essential. All this time these two are examing the harnesses, bridles, hitchings and wagon for broken or worn pieces, errors, things that might prove a disaster at a high trot in a ringful of other rigs. And it happens.

The first horse is hitched and you get a good look at how big and long this hitch is going to be. This is one horse.
By the time they are done, there will be 5 more.

Here comes Jason with the second wheel horse. He will lead him around the near horse and back him into place, then attach the tongue (I think that's what it is ) of the wagon to the harness and the harness to all the hooks and rings and clips and bits and pieces that keep everything in place.

Ok. Now we have the wheel team
attached to the wagon, and Jason, who will drive them, is in between fastening and checking the harnesses. I was hoping to watch all
six get hitched but about this time the Priefert people began giving the car (the little blue Prius in the photo)  "significant" looks. Susie would never, ever get in the way and we knew we were moving momentarily, out of their way.

Meanwhile, out came the second section for the next two horses. You can see by the length of the section exactly how long this hitch is going to be. There will be one more section after this one. Two horses hitched to this, and then two more in front. These are normal-sized adult male and female people. The horses make them look tiny...about now Susie came out and with some slick driving of her own, managed to get the car out of the way.

This is the Priefert six-horse-hitch in the ring, albeit a bad shot. This is how it looked all put together.

                     and this is what a team looks like from behind.

HOME AGAIN

I am back (not that you missed me) from the 2010 World Percheron Congress in Des Moines, Iowa. WOW!
I did not take any dogs along and while I missed them desperately they were better off at home. There were dogs there- Cattle dogs, Corgis, a Swiss Mountain dog, a long-haired Chihuahua, an alpha male Doberman I wouldn't have messed with (this is a story I will tell another time.): and ONE BASSET HOUND named--FLASH! Flash loved everyone, of course, but was kept well away from being underfoot. Some of the other dogs were probably horse-savvy but the first day we were there a cattle dog pup got his paw stepped on by a horse that probably weighed close to a ton. It was not a good place for a city dog.
Horses. Let me tell you!! These were all Percherons, black as coal or Dappled greys very few brown, almost none.

The world champion stallion stood 19 hands high (a hand is 4") at the withers, or shoulder. He weighed 2,442 pounds or thereabouts, I may have the last digit wrong but you get the idea. These are not Little People in the photos--these are grown men. Trust me, you do not walk one of these without thinking about it first, altho they are, for the most part, extremely gentle and sweet horses. Once they get into show-mode, it's another story, and besides, he's what he is-- breeding stock. And he knows it.

 This is how big the medium sized horses are. Look at his feet. I would walk through the barn and put my foot inside, completely, one hoofprint. The shoes they wear differ wildly, and I do not know enough to write about it. The horses who are used primarily in hitches have one kind, those with other jobs have different shoes. Farm horses have yet another kind. There were farm demonstrations, but the one I really wanted to see I forgot--it was last night and when we left, after the 8 hitch classes, it was already 10pm.
This is already a long blog.  But I want to say that I was there as a volunteer and we were up at 4:30 every morning and at the Hospitality Room by 6, Susie Spry and I.(There were many other volunteers, all over and helping in hospitality, but Susie and I opened the room every day and closed it down. ) By 6:45 the room was packed with horsepeople, who had already walked, watered and fed the horses, and those first two days it was FREEZING-- the wind whipping across the prairies from wherever and the temps plummeting. When I left home at 5 in the morning on Tues it was 71. When I got to Des Moines about noon, having battled winds that sent semis skittering across I-80 and rain, it was about 40, not counting windchill. People were ready for coffee! We closed the room at 3pm each day but I bailed and did a lot of photography.

This was bathtime. There was a room inside to bathe the horses as well, with warm water but it was always crowded the first couple of days.This horse was really fun to watch getting his bath. I couldn't tell whether he was thirsty or just curious. His ears are up, his face is relaxed even as he appears to be stepping away he really wasn't. The order of the photos is reversed and I think the water surprised him.

The real bathing room was

just inside the barn doors, altho there were three barns full of these horses. This grey is fairly small but not infrequently you saw grown men standing on kitchen ladders or stools to reach the tops of the horses backs, and their heads. One time, walking through the barn I saw a gelding chewing on the overhead stall beam. He was that tall.

FOUR ABREAST HITCH

ps. If you hate horses, skip the next few blogs.

TOMORROW

Tomorrow I leave DadPerson in charge and take off for the 2010 World Percheron Congress in Des Moines. My ever-faithful traveling companion, Cooper, will not be going. I have not told him this yet, but he sees the bags and is becoming suspicious. Hopeful, even.
He is afraid of normally-sized horses. I hate to think what meeting 800 Draft horses might do to him. We will be at the fairgrounds, I am told, from 6 in the morning until after 10pm. EVERY DAY.
I was going to make stuffed manicotti to take so Susie doesn't have to cook but I guess not. Transporting it, frozen, could be a real challenge.
So I am hoping to overwhelm the blog with photos of gorgeous horses and interesting people. I should take  some release forms. I will have to make them out. Hmm.