PROGRESSION

I have not been feeling too bright recently.  I seem to need to sleep a lot.  I also have been feeling like things are too much of an effort and I cannot be bothered.  Having given this some thought I have come to the conclusion that the recent tell-tale signs that my illness has progressed some more has rather pissed me off.

I have said before that I can deal with the pain. Really. I can take pills for it and I can switch my mind off from it so that I can do what I want within reason.  Fatigue is quite another matter and no pill will deal with that.  The two days after a dog show have long been ill days, with the day directly after being the worst.  I accepted that and I carry on showing.  Now though I find that going and giving a talk and demonstration leaves me ill the following day. On Friday, I did not go swimming, I took enough drugs to enable me to clean the dog shit up out of the garden.  Saturday my legs were buggered! I know that there is nothing I can do but accept this. I just cannot always happily accept what is.  I will given time.

About four years ago when I first started showing dogs, a woman became friendly to me.  At first I thought this was going to be a good friendship.  However I became wary of her because I soon realised that she never had a good word to say about anybody most especially her friends.  It also became apparent that she hated to lose and always blamed crooked or stupid judging for it never the lack of quality in her dogs.  The day Whitney won her first CC she bitched about the judging.  I knew then that I had been right to keep my emotional distance.  Recently we have fallen out altogether even though I tried to avoid that but it was inevitable.  Somebody who used my stud dog had a blue-eyed puppy in the litter. I also had one.  This is no big deal it is not a health problem.  However my so-called friend has of course made a song and dance about this, accused me of dishonesty, and does not even seem to realise that she has very similar lines! Not only that but I also had a blue-eyed puppy from a well-known and well used Champion stud dog, but she is not stirring the shit over that! No. She is delighted to finally have something in her mind that she can knock my Whitney for as my boy is her father.  This is all very silly.  People go ahead and breed from dogs with physical defects, some of which are deleterious to the dog and they get away with it.  A blue-eyed pup suffers no ill effects whatsoever, it is just a different coloured eye! I would much rather have these cosmetic problems than physical problems.  (For those who are not involved in dog breeding and showing the reason the blue eye is a problem is because you cannot show them because they are meant to be dark brown in the Lhasa Apso.) I was very surprised when I had my first blue-eyed puppy but it did not upset me.  Whenever one has a litter there are always puppies that cannot be shown for one reason or another and no litter except in very rare cases will produce all top quality puppies.

My attitude to dog breeding is openness.  Unfortunately not everybody is open or even agrees that one should be.  However, I could not keep any known facts about my own stud dog to myself if somebody wishes to use him.  He produces excellent quality stock and any person who decides to not use him because he produced a blue eye is a fool! Especially when said people ignore problems like patellar luxation or bad confirmation or even bad tempers.

As in human beings, the gene for blue eye must be inherited from BOTH parents in order for a puppy to display blue eyes.

It is only three weeks till we go on our holiday and I am really looking forward to it. I have two shows booked before I go though to be frank I am not really looking forward to them.  I have been rather pissed off to realise that even on the day that I entered a show there was no chance that Whitney was going to win because the judges’ best friend had also entered. Guess who got the ticket? I know this sort of thing happens but until that happened I respected both of these people. I do not like being made a fool of.  I might add that I was ignorant of the relationship otherwise I would have known not to enter.  I will not do so again. I know that at least one of the shows I have coming up the judge is as straight as they come.  I have no idea about the others.  At least Whitney has won all her 9 tickets and 5 Best of Breed and about 8 RCC’s on her own merit. The lack of another CC does not bother me. What bothers me is finding how I was deceived, and how myself and all others who entered were shown no respect.  It is very disappointing to have respected people who did not deserve it.  I always feel humiliated when I discover that my trust and respect was misplaced.