Back in 2018 I was invited to judge Cairn Terriers at the Annual Show of the Cairn Terrier Club of Victoria in Australia. I was so excited, pleased and honoured to receive this invitation. Of course, the first person I told was The Other Half and then My Dog Partner. We jumped with joy.
My Dog Partner isn’t good with long haul flights so stepped back and allowed The Other Half to accompany me on this judging trip.
We had over 18 months to sort our flights and Australian ventures. Little did we know that looming in the back ground was covid. A few years on and we are now all too familiar with words such as covid, lock down and cancellation.
At the time our Australian adventure Part 1, was cancelled, I was devastated. I was amongst a billion plus other people whose plans had been dashed, so in typical terrier fashion, I was sad for a second and was then onto the next challenge! (more about that in another blog – Renovations a Foot)
My judging invitation was deferred to 2024, then bought forward to 2023. Back in 2020 when we were in lockdown and our new world was so particularly odd, 2023 seemed too far into the future to worry about. Now, with the blink of an eye, it’s here. We are almost packed and with a little over 2 weeks to go, we will be flying off very soon (hopefully – am always cautious until it actually happens!!).
Now, I haven’t really introduced you to my family… I am talking the canine ones, not the human ones. I will probably do a blog about each of the present incumbents over the next few weeks, but suffice to say that the present head count is somewhere over 10!
The easy part about going away is sorting out myself. We are going to Australia for one month but taking hand luggage only. As I understand it, clothes are cheaper to purchase in Australia than in the UK so, our first job when we land will be shopping (for the judging outfit and other bits too). I see little point in spending in the UK when I can get more for my £ in a few weeks. Plus, its less to carry…
Back to the dogs. The dogs take a lot more sorting out than I do. I have created a 6 page table that contains their care plan. Which dogs are being farmed out to stay with friends, which are staying home, who is living in my home (human) and who is in during the days (human).
We went shopping yesterday to ensure that the dogs will have enough food, toys and treats for the duration of my holiday. The car was creaking under the weight of bonio’s, frozen tripe, crinkley Kong toys for the pups and copious amounts of kitchen roll! My friend, who kind of volunteered to come with me (not sure she will come again), was shoe horned into the front seat and then had to hold a 20kg bag of dog biscuit between her knee’s all the way home.
All of the shopping is now packed away from preying puppies and will soon be listed out into portions on the 7 day doggy menu!
Someone asked me today “are you nervous about leaving the dogs”. That made me think. Am I?
I wasn’t until this was asked, so now maybe I should be? But I am not.
I have a fabulous team around me that are stepping up and stepping in while I go away. I run my own business and that has enabled me to employ some super staff. I trust them. They know what I want and how we do things. Contingency plans are in place and that’s all we can do. At some point, I have learnt from years of experience, we have to stand back, we have to let go.
Stand back and let go. Its not easy to do but suffice to say the “stay at home” team are trusted and well versed in doggy care so, yes I will miss my team (both human and dog) but I will be back (will I? says the 20 year old inside me that wants to go off backpacking!) Yes I will, I will be back!
Comments