It was very nice to arrive at the Show grounds at Marymoor Park at 6:30 AM on
Sunday morning, 28 August, and not find a guy trying to teach his Chihuahua to swim in Ring 8 (or any other ring), the RV’s were not sinking into the field, the canopies were all just as we had left them Saturday evening and people with smiling faces were starting to wander the grounds. The sky was the usual shade of western Washington gray and the air was a bit cool, but nary a rain drop until the last of us doing the grounds clean up left the grounds at about 7 PM that evening. The Weather Gods chose to favor us with clearing skies and a warm breeze during the hours of our show.

The show had it’s usual few problems: the club parking was a bit difficult to handle, the tractor trailer truck that Bob assigned to park in the loading zone for the weekend (got him moved very quickly), a glitch in RV parking that nearly resulted in a hearing, the unhappy Rally Novice exhibitors that could not understand the barking dogs in the next ring, a few late Obedience Ring stewards that had me very worried at about 8:15 AM, the usual battle of the fire lanes, an Obedience judge that “forgot” to tell me that she was judging Obedience for 2 Specialty Clubs and I scheduled them at overlapping times in different rings, 2 broken golf carts that we really could have used and a broken jump post discovered 10 minutes before ring time. Nothing serious and all handled expertly and quickly by club members, our Superintendent and volunteers.

This show was an unbridled success thanks to a very dedicated Show Chair, all the working members of our club, a good Superintendent, many volunteers, Barb from the King County Sheriff’s Department, our EMT Brian Kingery, expert judges, and numerous sacrifices to the Weather Gods. The grounds were beautiful and much appreciated by our exhibitors (thank you King County Parks, Marymoor staff). As I wandered the grounds Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I only heard one complaint: parking. I have made the same complaint myself at many other shows where I had to carry gear, guide a dog and get set up more than 5 feet from my car. Not much we can do to solve this problem.

A special thank you is extended to Dave, Verlynn and Julia Johns, our newest club members, for the use of their beautiful RV from Thursday through Sunday. Next year the grounds will be totally different as King County Parks will be paving the area where we are currently parking the RV’s (paving is to be finished by November 2005). They have assured us that this will actually be an improvement as we can locate day parking behind the RV’s. All of the show rings will move further down the field and Agility will probably be moved across the street. But, we do not need to worry about any of this for at least 10 minutes as we have another show coming up in just four and one half months at the Western Washington Fairgrounds. See you in Puyallup!!

Respectfully,
Dee Carlson
President – Sammamish Kennel Club

PS – Rusty will be presiding over the Board and Membership meetings in September as Ken and I are going on a much needed vacation, as usual.