East Carolina
Waterfowl Festival
Washington, NC 2010

What a mistake it was for Rocket and I to go to this event. Right after I left York, PA one of the worst blizzards of the decade settled upon the east coast. Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia were put into a state of emergency and roads were closed. In North Carolina where this event was held we were "lucky" and just received driving freezing rain, high winds that blew canopies across the field and a very icy dock. The water was freezing and Rocket let it be known that he does not like cold water. His first jump of the weekend was his best because at that point he didn't realize how cold the pool water was. Each additional jump got shorter and shorter till he eventually refused to jump.

Rocket made finals with the biggest jump of the weekend so far but I scratched him and we headed home. The roads were barely open and I spent most of my drive on I-95 driving up the shoulder of the road with everyone else. Cars littered the side of the road, face first into the snowbanks but my Subaru and I had no problems.

We didn't enter another event until April but even at this event the weather was damp and chilly. Rocket's first jump was a refusal. Second and third jumps were 9' and the fourth jump he got up to a 10 ' leap. This was not the type of jumping that I wanted to reinforce with Rocket so we packed up and headed for home.

Shippensburg Furry Fun Days was our next event and luckily for us it was a hot early June weekend. It was at this event that Rocket returned to his normal jumping of 24+ feet and I breathed a sigh of relief.

The decision has been made and I will never sign him up for an event that I feel will be too cold for him. It took me months to earn back his trust, we do not want to go through that again so I guess you can call us fair weather competitors but that is fine with us.