Well, I started trying to write a brief update on Friday (I think), but the nearly-useless wireless networking available on the show site just made it impossible to finish. Somewhere on this blog site, not visible to you, is a draft of that effort, but it’s so out of date that I thought I should just start over.

Highlights:

• Well, the bottom line is that we brought in (gross, all groups combined) just $38 short of $13,000! That isn’t close to the record of just over $16,000 we did last year, but it’s far better than I’d feared we’d do.
• We had some very good help this year. While Barbara and I were both in the booth most of the time (my major exceptions were when I went out to run errands, such as to buy cash register paper rolls), we almost always had one, two, or even three additional helpers there with us. I want to especially thank Becky Ramsey of DFW Sheltie Rescue and Barbara Boylan of Greater Louisville Sheltie Rescue for all of the hours that they spent helping out. In addition, we had helpers from the local (host) Sheltie club and the two Georgia Sheltie rescue groups, friends of people from other rescue groups, etc.
• There was very little product that had to be sent back (in our case, taken back) to the various rescue groups. We sold almost everything we had except for a couple of dozen towels and a few shirts, which was wonderful .
• We held three raffles this year (the maximum authorized by the ASSA board of directors). One was, as always, for the Rescue Quilt. A second one was for a diamond necklace, identical to one we raffled last year. The third was for a necklace/bracelet set made of solid something-carat gold Sheltie heads! A woman who bought just three tickets for the diamond necklace refused to give us her name and wrote on the back of the raffle ticket "ASSA Rescue". And guess what ticket got drawn? Yes, one of those three! So we won the necklace back (technically, the winner was the un-named woman, who re-donated the necklace back to us) and will raffle it again next year. (Yes, some people complained that it was rigged, but most people seemed genuinely happy about it.)
• We actually had everything torn down, boxed up, and loaded into the rental car 15 minutes before the Saturday night banquet started! Of course, we didn’t have time to go back to the room and clean up or change clothes, but we got there before they started serving. What a strange experience
• At the banquet, Barbara gave a very nice report on the success of the rescue booth and ensured that she thanked everybody who had helped us out.

Lowlights:

• In spite of my efforts every year to make the sales and inventory systems foolproof, things still didn’t completely balance out in the end. I’m still working on the numbers (hope to finish them tomorrow) so I can tell Dorothy Christiansen (national rescue coordinator) exactly how much money each group gets from that $13K, but I know already that about half of the groups had at least some product unaccounted for! Sheltie Rescue of Utah appears to have "lost" $109 worth . Other groups didn’t lose nearly as much. (As much as I hate to even suggest it, I am pretty certain that some of the loss was very real, probably due to shoplifting!)
• We were so busy all of the time in the booth that I did not get to see much of the show itself. At herding, I saw one dog’s complete performance and about half of two other dogs performances. At agility, even though we set up tables just outside the rings, I did not see a single dog’s performance — not one! And the only contact I had with obedience this year was when I ran over to their building to reassure everybody that we would try to hold up the parade of veterans and the parade of rescues until they got there.
• Every day started much too early and ended much too late. I’m still exhausted, as is Barbara.

Well, that’s hardly a comprehensive review, but it’s at least something!

Oh, and here’s a picture of that incredible Rescue Quilt:

Here we are, in Perry, GA, at the 2009 ASSA National Specialty Dog Show ("the National"). And we’ve been very, very busy…not getting a lot of sleep, either.

We got to the Atlanta airport Thursday late afternoon, rented a car (out of sheer luck, we got a Jeep, which carried a fair amount of cargo—very helpful, since we had checked six large duffel bags containing product that we’re selling at the National), and drove the 1½ hours to Perry.

On Friday, we unpacked everything and started applying barcode labels that I’d printed before we left home. Then we drove back up to Atlanta to meet Joan Flowers, the local coordinator for the rescue booth (Barbara, as some of you know, is the national rescue booth coordinator), to pick up boxes of product that other rescue groups had sent to be sold. And, of course, we drove back to Perry.

We spent many hours Friday night, until about 02:30 (yes, AM) applying barcode labels to product, mostly to the National Sheltie Rescue Network tee-shirts. Then we had to get up at 05:00 (yes, again, AM) to drive 1¾ hours to some other town where the Herding event was being held, so we could sell product to those exhibitors. And it was worth it, too—we sold around $500 to $600 worth of product (all rescue groups combined, not merely Sheltie Rescue of Utah). After a long day in a very hot sun (getting very sunburned in the process), we drove the 1¾ hours back to Perry and collapsed into bed.

Sunday, at 07:00, we were up again, heading over to the main show site to set up some tables in the Agility building, where (happily!) people were practically throwing money at us! For so many years, nobody could be bothered taking rescue table product over to the performance people, which (a)left money lying on the table (metaphorically speaking) and (b)made the performance people feel like second-class citizens. Well, Barbara and I decided several years ago that we would change that, even though it makes our jobs a lot harder.

On Monday, the scheduled events included Obedience, as well as Futurity (a conformation event). We expected sales to be pretty slow, but they were much better than expected. And Tuesday is always a really slow day, because the only scheduled event is the "Seminar". Surprisingly, though, we made quite a few sales.

Today’s Wednesday, and business hasn’t been as brisk as we hoped, but we’re not doing too badly. And there’s probably another hour left in the day during which there will be enough people around to make it worth keeping the booth open. All told, so far, we’ve done about $8400 (gross) in sales. That makes it just about certain that we’ll break $10K, but it looks very unlikely that we’ll hit $15K. This will be the first year that Barbara and I haven’t broken all previous records at the rescue booth but the economy is really taking a toll on everybody.

On Monday afternoon, after the last class in Futurity, we always have the Parade of Veterans and the Parade of Rescues. Unfortunately, Barbara got assigned the job of rounding up all of the entrants for the Parade of Rescues (and, if Dorothy—the National Sheltie Rescue Network directory—hadn’t gotten to the show on time, Barbara would have had to run the Parade, too), so we didn’t get to watch the Veterans. That’s one of my favorite things at the National (the other is the Parade of Rescues, of course).

But it’s a real tear-jerker! This year, the Veterans seemed to generally be relatively young and active, but in some earlier years, we’ve had dogs who could barely stand, much less walk, but they are always so proud to be in the ring again with their mommy or daddy and getting applause. We can just see their eyes light up when people start clapping. The announcer reads whatever story their owner provided as they’re going around the ring. For those of us who love the seniors as much as Barbara and I do, it’s a sort of torturous version of heaven

Well, duty calls, so I’m going to close this posting now, but I’ll try to write some more later this week.