on wednesday, mom and i joined amy and jim on an overnight to Purina Farms, close to six flags in St. Louis.  it was the 2016 Italian Greyhound show, and when amy told me that their four IGs were going to be in a rescue parade, i said I MUST GO TOO!

here’s a video from the show – the first part is a couple of clips of IGs doing the agility course.  i wish i’d shot more video, but i assumed there would be lots more opportunities, but then there weren’t.  but you’ll get the idea of how it went…then i recorded as much as i could of the next crazy day, with the Rescue Parade and plenty of doggie madness.

when we first arrived at Purina Farms on Wednesday afternoon we saw this cage full of IGs.

and the van they were attached to was also packed to the gills with IGs.  this must have been a breeder.  i wonder if they sold any?  it was a very warm and humid day, but i guess the dogs were OK with being outside.  How loud must it be when they’re driving?  i know that amy and jim’s dogs have a lot to say when in the car, and i can’t imagine how a person could stand that many barking/howling dogs.

Purina Farms is a lovely piece of property in the rolling foothills of the ozarks.  mom and i took my van because amy and jim’s van was filled with dogs and dog beds and blankets and mostly everything in the world. plus ours was a much more quiet trip than theirs.  mom and i didn’t bark at all.

here’s one of the cute topiaries at the entrance to the event center.

we thought it was exclusively an IG show, but there were other dogs competing  as well.  there were a lot of these cute little dogs. i think it’s a brindled american shepherd?  i must have heard somebody say that.

i’m not sure what this darling little dog is, except super cute.

amy and jim got to the center about an hour after we did, and by that time not much was going on anymore, so we headed to the holiday inn.  it was literally right across the street from six flags, which i thought was cool.

mom and i walked over to the giant six flags parking lot, and it was weird because it’s closed during the week now.  so deserted.  i really wanted to jump the fence and walk around, but of course then i’d have been arrested, so i decided not to.  plus mom didn’t want to walk all the way to the gate anyway.

i just read a couple reviews about the hotel on trip advisor and somebody complained that it wasn’t within walking distance of the park.  hmm, since my 80 year-old mom was able to do it, just how unable to walk was that person? it was literally right across the street.

we went back to Purina Farms to see Sarah, the sweet woman who had fostered amy and jim’s dogs laz and sadie.  we met deb, the head of all the missouri/kansas rescue, and then we piled back into amy’s car and headed back to the hotel.  mom and amy got us some carryout chinese food, while i luxuriated in my room, channel-surfing.  we don’t have cable anymore at our house, and as i flipped through the channels i realized that i don’t miss it at all.

we then had a lovely feast in amy and jim’s room which adjoined ours.

the holiday inn has a “fundome,” which is like the “holidome” that the old holiday inn east here in springfield used to have.  it was kinda cool.  do you see the “exercise room” there in the upper right?  it’s a platform with a few machines on it.  there’s a little bar there in the background. on wednesday night there was one lone person sitting at the bar, and one woman in the pool and a couple kids in the kiddie pool.  the place definitely had a “shining” vibe, except not scary, just deserted.

they’d had a fire in the kitchen recently so the restaurant was closed, so no free hot breakfast.  instead, this little continental fare was spread out on a table poolside.  not bad, except they had no tea at all.

amy had decided she’d dress the dogs as “sharks & jets” from west side story, and wrote a bio about them including why she dressed them like that.   the girls sadie and izzy were the sharks, with little fluffy skirts like the puerto rican sharks in the play.  izzy is like a shark because she has hair loss and feels like a shark.  i guess sadie is always sharking around looking for food.  and the boys laz and mincy were the jets, because they fly around all over the place like airplanes.  they looked adorable.  amy had intended to fashion fins to put on the girls’  backs, but that didn’t happen which is probably just as well because they probably would have fallen off.

here they are on thursday morning, excited to be headed back to the dogapalooza.

it was a loud and energetic scene, to put it mildly.  that’s deb there in the green shirt.  and jim wore green and grey, to match the dogs’ t-shirts.

sweet old dog.

dogs in prison!

amy was going to get really dressed up for the parade, but decided to wear a couple of boas, but then she took them off for the parade because they were very hot.  all the dogs were attached to her at this point, and during the morning they were also attached to me for a while, and it was quite an effort to keep them from getting hopelessly tangled.  i walked them around a lot so they wouldn’t get bored and start barking.

so cute!

it was challenging to try to get a still photo of all of them.

we thought the Rescue Parade was going to start at 9:00, so we made a huge effort to get there before then.  but they had to judge all these pedigreed IGs first, and as you can see, there were lots of them.

cleaning up the inevitable accident.

the Rescue Parade was then going to start at 10:45, but that didn’t happen either.  it was interesting to be around all these serious dog show people, because they really did seem like the characters in “best in show.”  i observed some high-strung antics from some of the owners.

finally the parade started at about 11:30!  here’s sarah with a couple of dogs she’s fostering now.

i tried to take pictures with my phone with one hand while holding the video camera in the other, but that didn’t work out.  Deb read amy’s bio as they paraded around, but it was hard to hear. my favorite part of the whole event is how amy was prancing around the ring.  so funny!

whew.  we finally left the show after the parade and headed back home.  mom and i took the scenic route for part of the way, and stopped in the little town of Hamel at this cute little bar called Weezy’s for lunch.

i love this picture!

amy took this of the dogs on the way home in their crash-proof dog cage.  i think they were pretty quiet because they were completely exhausted from their first-ever hotel and dog show experience.

we were all pretty tired.

but a good time was had by all!

ok then,

mrs. past the ides of september hughes.’