Saturday, November 6, 2010

Rover Misbehaving? Call Sharon Griswold!

Today has been a blast, because of our 1st Annual Dog Adoption and Training Seminar. This morning at six o'clock when I climbed out of bed, because we have a high bed, I walked into the kitchen and turned on Mr. Coffee, then I checked the outdoor thermometer and it was thirty-two degrees! I was more than thrilled, because that means that Tony and I are done with the mowing until Spring rolls back around.

While our dogs ate their breakfast I started fixing our breakfast and by six forty-five T. was outside doing his morning chores in the dark, Queen Bee was busy washing our dirty clothes and Hazel came out of the closet. Fifteen minutes after the floors were cleaned of dirt and dog hair—she went back into the closet and then I jumped into the tub without hurting myself or the twenty-seven year old, plastic molded bathtub.

I have the weirdest bathtub. It was designed for trailers, made back in 1983 and it was meant to look expensive, but it doesn't come close, because I am pretty positive that whoever designed it had not been drug tested and should have been.

Her name is Mellow Yellow. She has been good to me for over fifteen years by not cracking, leaking or falling through the floor to ground level and I appreciate her for that, because thirteen years ago this couple I knew, were taking a romantic bath together with music and candles burning and suddenly their "love" tub, full of water and them, crashed through the trailer floor and landed on the ground below, with them still in it and then the candles quickly burned down their trailer. Fortunately, they were unharmed, but they did fall out of love and got divorced a few months later and I haven't heard from them since.

What makes Mellow Yellow weird is her giant step down into the tub, because it is useless and takes up over half of the tub's space and it makes no sense to me why it is there. I don't need a step down to get into an undersized bathtub. It is a total waste of space and it makes cleaning her hard to do, but I guess it does conserve water, so maybe that is a good thing after all. 

I love Mellow Yellow, but after my friends "Titanic incident," when I take a bath I only fill her halfway full or less and I use those battery operated "fake candles" just in case I suddenly come crashing down to earth. Okay, enough said about Mellow Yellow.

Today's event was fantastic thanks to Eileen Gotke and Ellen Jackson's hard work. The weather could not have been any better and the turnout was good and Mari and two members of The NoMads surprised us when they showed up. After everyone had arrived I introduced myself and then gave them a tour of the rescue ranch, so they could meet all of our dogs. 

Eileen had spent hours last week making up some really cute signs of our Top 10 Dogs to showcase and everyone really enjoyed reading them as we went from one dog pen to another. Thank you, Eileen!

After the tour, Sharon Griswold, the owner of "Rover Misbehaving?" did a great, informative presentation on dog training while everyone munched away on delicious homemade cookies, while sipping lemonade or tea that Eileen and Ellen had made. 

At one point during Sharon's interesting dog training seminar, T. was asked to get our dog, Lucy, a beautiful Heeler / Lab mix, for her demonstration, so Tone went and leashed up Lucy and delivered her to Sharon. Everyone was mesmerized as we watched Sharon work with Lucy and Lucy seemed to love it. When Sharon showed us how to properly massage a dog, Lucy would not quit kissing her on her face and mouth as Sharon rubbed her and explained to us why massage was so important to a dog.

When Sharon's dog training seminar ended I had learned so much from her, as did everyone else who had attended and we cannot thank her enough for volunteering to do the dog training seminar today. Thank you, Sharon Griswold of Rover Misbehaving?—You Truly Rock! And Lucy already misses you and she wants to know how much a massage costs.

This evening Kinky called me from Willie Nelson's bus in Norman, Oklahoma to ask me how the event went. I assume by what all I have written about it—you know what I told him. Then we talked about Pearl, who we think has found her forever home and then we laughed about a few other things. "Take care, Nance. I'll be home Monday. Bye."

This evening at six o'clock I decided to save a little time, so I went around the the trailer and set all of our clocks back one hour, so I don't have to get up in the wee hours of the morning and do what I did last week. It is kind of weird, because right now as I finish writing this it is only eight-fifteen on the kitchen clock, even though it is actually nine-fifteen. 

Today's 1st Annual Dog Adoption and Training Seminar was a howling success! And I want to thank our great volunteers for doing all of the work for us. Thank you, Eileen Gotke, Ellen Jackson, June Hartley and Jim McMahon! We love y'all and cannot thank you enough! And thank you, Sharon "The Great Dog Whisperer" Griswold dog trainer! You're the best and we know it! I also want to thank all of the media coverage for helping us get the word out: Harley Belew at The Rose 99.9, Andy, Bryant, Roland and Kim at KVHC-TV Kerrville for having us on their show with Jermaine Jackson, Mikie Baker at the Bandera County Courier and Tom at The Kerrville Daily Times—you made it happen for us! Thank you, so much! We love all of y'all! Dogs Rule And So Do You!

Y'all have a great evening!

3 comments:

Eileen said...

Nancy, I need no thanks at all because it was a blast to assist in this fun event! I do want to thank the media as you did - especially that nice Tom Simpson at The Kerrville Daily Times - he actually put the event on the front page! That was really something! Thank you Nancy and Tony for all you do for the dogs!

Ellen Jackson said...

I love helping out at Utopia! You and Tony rock!! The event was great, and I would like to add my thanks to Tom Sampson for the super article in the newspaper.
Ellen

Mari of the NoMads said...

The NoMads remain conflicted about visits to Utopia Rescue. You see we LOVE it so much out there that we HATE to LEAVE!

Congratulations on the complete day - what a well-organized and pleasant event!

And you and Tony KNOW that I'm now going to work hard on getting Ashley adopted out. It's high time for her to stop being 'overlooked' by folks and instead be recognized for the great dog she is! (I recognize "way cool" when I see it - LOL)

Thanks again for a wonderful time - ALWAYS a pleasure to see all of you!