Team TnT at it again!

Over the weekend, Tripp & I headed to Manchester, CT (just outside Hartford) for a musical freestyle demo at a pet fair.  The predawn rising didn't thrill me, but thankfully the 3.5 hr. drive was less complicated than expected... Somewhat more difficult on the way home as storms blew in and we hit some hard rain and minor flooding, and later got caught behind a nasty accident, but all in all it wasn't a terrible trip.  The Poodle slept through the whole thing (lucky dog).  I did crash pretty hard myself when we got home - on the couch, that is.  ;-)
The event was nice - several vendors, including a fellow creative groomer who I got to chat with for quite a while, and of course several other local businesses and lots of rescue groups.  Tripp as usual enjoyed meeting everyone and soaked up all the admiration directed his way (both at the event and even more later at a rest stop)!  The dog park (MDOG) looked very interesting, complete with swimming pool (we didn't go in the park, just glanced from afar) and I was proud of Tripp - he did really well with most of the dogs that greeted him - even the males!  I don't think his obsessiveness over dogs will ever decrease, but I'll take less machoism any time.
There was a handful of other training demonstrations at the festival, as well as fun pet contests throughout the day.  We performed our group routine with the PomPoms, and then our solo act.  I made some recent tweaks to it - mostly to reduce the excess jumping - so lots of new stuff in there.  Also a good charge of winging it, as I forgot some of my intended changes, LOL. Plus there were inevitable moments of distraction.  But that's one nice thing about freestyle - only you know what the routine is, so if you mess up most people don't know the difference (well, except when the dog just stands there staring at other dogs outside the ring, haha).  Overall I was pretty happy with how it turned out.  Still needs work, but it's getting there. :-)

Unfortunately I did not get video of the Poms (though someone else did - I will add it here if/when she gets it on youtube), but Robin (our other Parti Poodle dancer) filmed Tripp & I in the ring.  So glad, as when we were out there I thought we did much worse than we look upon playback.  Of course, I usually feel that way - Miss Perfectionist. LOL

Pardon the sound - it was very windy! 

p.s.  A nice incentive that I learned about after the fact was that the event was sponsoring our demos by offering a donation to WCFO, the freestyle organization which Tripp is titled in.  That made the trip even more worthwhile. :-)