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Our friends' daughter showed us her Halloween costume this afternoon.
( And then there was the love fest with the alpacas )
2 November 2010
( And then there was the love fest with the alpacas )
So we took Hannibal to the Rockton World's Fair to show him in the ring. We were also showing Neo at the same time. Since Neo is more skittish and Hannibal is more of an old hand in the show ring, and because I was a lupus-fried space cadet that day, it was decided that I'd handle Hannibal and Dar would handle Neo.
Uh . . . best laid plans and all that.
Hannibal was really on edge, because we had him in a pen just about 10 feet away from an open female. Hannie is an alpha stud male. Biological imperative says MUST MATE. But he couldn't because of so many reasons. So I get in the ring, and the judge is very well-known (except by me because I have no memory of her) and quite snarky. She also has a specific way she wants the alpacas shown: march in like this, turn like this, face the alpaca in that direction, lalalalala. Very little of which Hannibal would comply with.
We came to the point where she wanted everyone to place their alpacas in front of them facing to the left. I tug on Hannie's lead. Resistance. I tug a little more insistently - nothing. I hear people start laughing and I look down and Hannie is peeing like Niagara Falls after a hard rain. He peed and he peed and he peed and he peed some more. Literally minutes went by. The judge joked about taking a lunch break. Finally he stopped. And started to poop. At least that didn't take too long. So I'm finally turning him around in circles trying to get him to line up right and not step in the poo pile. I should also note that by this point the seat of my pants was covered in straw and dirt, my shirt was coming untucked, and my show number was both wrong and turned inside out. (In our rush to get into the ring - because they changed the show order without letting us know until the last minute - Dar and I had switched show numbers). I'd also just a few days prior to this received that disastrously short haircut, so my medically-induced bald spots in back were on full display. Let's just say that the whole performance was not pretty. Pretty funny, but not pretty.
The judge starts her individual inspection of the alpacas: checking their conformation, their bite and, since this was the male category, their testicles. She gets to Hannie and me and asks me to show her his teeth. I try to open his mouth, which is the wrong thing to do - you just have to pull back his lips and show her the bite. I know this - except I completely blew it because I was so spaced out. I'm wrestling with Hannibal for a few seconds before the judge kindly reminded me to just pull back on his lips. *shame spiral begins* Then on to the testicles. Being already hot and bothered by the open female earlier, he was not up for having no humans messing about with his testicles. More wrestling, but we got it done.
Amazingly, in spite of my poor handling, he won first place. Because he's Hannibal and he's spectacular. So the announcer calls his name, and the ring manager tells everyone they can leave, which I conclude means me, too. So I start to take off with Hannibal when the judge has to call me back. She said something snarky and very funny, and I wish to hell I could remember exactly what it was, because I laughed my ass off after she said it.
All of the suri First Prize winners were called back later for the Best in Show competition, and things went much more smoothly then. He didn't pee, I didn't space out (too much), and he won that prize, too.
It wasn't my first time in the alpaca show ring, but it was my wildest. Even more so than the time Ripley decided to throw herself down on the ground int he middle of the ring and refused to get up until the judge told us to get out. Showing alpacas, guys. Not for the faint of heart :)
Uh . . . best laid plans and all that.
Hannibal was really on edge, because we had him in a pen just about 10 feet away from an open female. Hannie is an alpha stud male. Biological imperative says MUST MATE. But he couldn't because of so many reasons. So I get in the ring, and the judge is very well-known (except by me because I have no memory of her) and quite snarky. She also has a specific way she wants the alpacas shown: march in like this, turn like this, face the alpaca in that direction, lalalalala. Very little of which Hannibal would comply with.
We came to the point where she wanted everyone to place their alpacas in front of them facing to the left. I tug on Hannie's lead. Resistance. I tug a little more insistently - nothing. I hear people start laughing and I look down and Hannie is peeing like Niagara Falls after a hard rain. He peed and he peed and he peed and he peed some more. Literally minutes went by. The judge joked about taking a lunch break. Finally he stopped. And started to poop. At least that didn't take too long. So I'm finally turning him around in circles trying to get him to line up right and not step in the poo pile. I should also note that by this point the seat of my pants was covered in straw and dirt, my shirt was coming untucked, and my show number was both wrong and turned inside out. (In our rush to get into the ring - because they changed the show order without letting us know until the last minute - Dar and I had switched show numbers). I'd also just a few days prior to this received that disastrously short haircut, so my medically-induced bald spots in back were on full display. Let's just say that the whole performance was not pretty. Pretty funny, but not pretty.
The judge starts her individual inspection of the alpacas: checking their conformation, their bite and, since this was the male category, their testicles. She gets to Hannie and me and asks me to show her his teeth. I try to open his mouth, which is the wrong thing to do - you just have to pull back his lips and show her the bite. I know this - except I completely blew it because I was so spaced out. I'm wrestling with Hannibal for a few seconds before the judge kindly reminded me to just pull back on his lips. *shame spiral begins* Then on to the testicles. Being already hot and bothered by the open female earlier, he was not up for having no humans messing about with his testicles. More wrestling, but we got it done.
Amazingly, in spite of my poor handling, he won first place. Because he's Hannibal and he's spectacular. So the announcer calls his name, and the ring manager tells everyone they can leave, which I conclude means me, too. So I start to take off with Hannibal when the judge has to call me back. She said something snarky and very funny, and I wish to hell I could remember exactly what it was, because I laughed my ass off after she said it.
All of the suri First Prize winners were called back later for the Best in Show competition, and things went much more smoothly then. He didn't pee, I didn't space out (too much), and he won that prize, too.
It wasn't my first time in the alpaca show ring, but it was my wildest. Even more so than the time Ripley decided to throw herself down on the ground int he middle of the ring and refused to get up until the judge told us to get out. Showing alpacas, guys. Not for the faint of heart :)
