Everything was so screwed up I really don’t know where to begin the story.
The trial confirmation I received via e-mail stated crating setup was Thursday from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm, so I left my house at 6:30 am knowing I would have at least an eight hour drive straight through depending on the road construction in Wyoming. I stopped at the hotel first to check in with only a few minutes to spare, and then drove to the trial site to setup. I pulled into the parking lot of the trial site at 3:50 pm with EVERYONE else and walked into the horse barn to find out where we would be crating since there were no details in the e-mail.
There were several women whom I assumed were club members walking around completely confused trying to figure out where to put the crating area. Now mind you we are in a commercial horse facility, with horse stalls (and horses in each one of them) on every wall and with several isles of horse stalls on one side of the building and an indoor arena in the middle of the horse stalls with a 5’5” solid wood plank wall surrounding the arena!
So I stood in back of the crowd and waited for the “powers that be” to make a decision on EXACTLY where they wanted us exhibitors to crate. As I’m listening to the many confusing discussions going on, this woman who I will call Cruella finally makes the executive decision and announces to the crowd gathered that we can crate ANYWHERE along the wall of the arena across from the horse stalls, but to crate very close together since it is going to be very tight quarters and to stack crates if you can. So everyone scatters to find a place to crate.
So I stood in back of the crowd and waited for the “powers that be” to make a decision on EXACTLY where they wanted us exhibitors to crate. As I’m listening to the many confusing discussions going on, this woman who I will call Cruella finally makes the executive decision and announces to the crowd gathered that we can crate ANYWHERE along the wall of the arena across from the horse stalls, but to crate very close together since it is going to be very tight quarters and to stack crates if you can. So everyone scatters to find a place to crate.
I head to the other end of the building a long way away from where these women were standing and lay down my tarp and plug in my extension cord, then head back out to my car to bring in Dolcenea’s wire crate. By this time everyone else has laid down their huge floor mats, you know the kind that are 9’x6’ and take up allot of room. I’ve only brought in a tarp big enough to fit right under Dolcenea’s crate without any additional coverage. And I’ve only taken up a spot that is right next to 6 bags of sawdust that are laid on top of each other sticking 4’ out into the isle way. So my crating spot is about 3’x4’ and everyone else that is a club member and friends of club members have taken up a spot 4’x 12’ or bigger.
Cruella and her entourage bring out red tape and start marking off a 4’ path measured from the solid wood arena wall out into the isle way, and tells everyone crating they have to stay back behind the red tape, that the remaining 6’ space will be used to bring the horses in and out of their stalls while the trial is running. I think to myself, boy I certainly wouldn’t want my horse walking between all of these barking dogs!
As I’m setting up my wire crate all of a sudden this Cruella woman walks over to me with her group of cronies as several on-lookers turn to watch, and one of her cronies tells me “You can’t setup your crating it’s not 4:00 pm”, I pull out my cell phone as she’s making this comment to me and it shows 3:58 pm, so I reply it’s 4:00 pm according to my clock moving the cell phone so she can see the time. Now keep in mind there are at least 30 other people setting up their crating areas and Cruella and her main crony have decided to single me out because I’m a NEWBIE in their eyes and can be bullied, they think! They don’t know me from Adam! I’ve never been to one of their trials ever before, so I’m fare game!
The next thing I know Cruella with all of her cronies and the on-lookers still watching proceeds to RIP MY FACE OFF! She’s YELLING at me with her hands on her hips and her head swinging back and forth for emphasis: “you can’t crate there”, pointing to where I’ve laid my tarp. I calmly ask why and she yells at me “we need that space for someone else!” I ask who? Then she gets even madder and barks back “the score table!” Just as she gets the words out of her mouth one of her cronies taps her on the shoulder and says the score table person already has their spot they wanted at the end of the arena on the corner by the big door. So Cruella then turns and GLARES at me, like her anger and hatred are all my fault! If looks could kill I would be six feet under! At this point in time I’m thinking that her head is going to start spinning around just like the girl in the Exorcist! Her eyes are bulging out of her head, she’s foaming at the mouth, her face is beet red, veins are popping out of her neck and then with the worst venom I’ve ever heard coming out of a woman’s mouth she screams: “you can’t plug into that electric outlet, pointing to where I’ve plugged in my extension cord!!!”
I calmly ask why and she screams at me that “they need it for the score table!!!” I calmly explain there are 4 electrical outlets in this one area and I’ve brought a 50’ extension cord with 4 additional plug ins that everyone who wants to can plug into. Cruella gets absolutely FURIOUS (I’m expecting her to have a stroke on the spot she’s so angry and full of hate) with me and raises her yelling and screaming to a full ROAR DEMANDING I leave the space and unplug my extension cord immediately. Needless to say I DIDN’T MOVE! I calmly explain I’m setting up my crating spot just like everyone else and I remind her she said we could crate “anywhere along the arena wall”, and I need electricity for my fan so my Akita won’t over heat. She screams at the top of her lungs “we never put in the premium exhibitors could use the electricity!” and now she has stepped into my personal space placing the end of her nose right in front of mine and screams “if there are any electrical outlets left over all of you idiots can fight over it” then she turns and storms off leaving me standing there with my mouth agape and all of her cronies and the numerous on-lookers staring and glaring at me like everything that had gone wrong that day was all my fault!!! I felt like I had just been attacked and ripped apart by a lion and the beast walked away with a full belly and what was left over went to the on-looker vultures. Not one person of the 15 or so standing there came to my defense!
Cruella walks 4 feet away to setup her crating area and I and everyone in the area can clearly hear her blaming me for everything that has gone wrong:
1. The times for the exhibitors to setup crating in the building in the trial confirmation were wrong, it should have read 5:00 pm not 4:00 pm, and I should have known that and not arrived to setup my crating until 5:00 pm!
2. The premium was wrong, it had the wrong address on it, and I should have known that.
3. No one showed up to help setup the rings and unload the trailer, and how dare I want to setup my crating until these chores were done! And none of the exhibitors should be in the building until the ring is setup, and of course this is also my fault!
4. She doesn’t know where to set the agility equipment so NO ONE can crate on either end of the arena. (so we only ended up with a 4’x 100’ crating area for 150 people) and someone put up their soft crates in the area at the end of the arena , and she thought it was me, so this was all my fault too!!!
5. She doesn’t know how to turn on the building lights.
6. She can’t find the girl who owns all of the loose dogs running around the facility upsetting all of the exhibitors’ dogs.
So of course when I come to the trial Friday morning someone (I find out later it was one of Cruella’s cronies) has unplugged my extension cord and thrown it on the ground, and they have plugged in several extension cords to use up all of the outlets! So I reach up to the electrical outlet and unplug their extension cord and plug it into mine, then plug mine back in, and proceed to plug in my fan and everything works fine. The cronies don’t know the difference. BUT all of my stuff has now been shoved against the 6 stacks of sawdust and I’ve got 2 soft crates JAMMED up against Dolcenea’s wire crate so tight I can’t get the crate door open. So I had to move the 6 bags of sawdust over 5 inches so I would have enough room to get the crate door open.
Mind you as I walked down the isle way and looked at all the club members setups and all of their friends they had taken up all the space in the world! Several portable chairs, electrical fans, and coolers spread out all over their crating area but me and my friendly crating neighbor were slammed right on top of each other thanks to Cruella and her cronies! I had to guard my stuff all day Friday to make sure the cronies didn’t come and move my stuff or the sawdust bags again, or unplug Dolcenea’s fan!!! It was over 80 degrees in the building.
The main reasons I went to this trial was because the judge was a local judge and that I had never been to Montana ever before. I had always heard how beautiful it was and that I would just love it once I got there! What a huge mistake this was!
I spoke to my friendly crating neighbor and she told me that Cruella had also ripped her face off earlier because in the premium she received they had posted the prior agility location that the club usually used and that is where she drove to. But when she got there and didn’t see any cars she knew something was wrong, so she asked the owner of the facility and they said they didn’t allow the club to use the facility this year, but she didn’t go into any details why. So this friendly neighbor who knew Cruella called her on the phone asking where the trial had been moved to and Cruella proceeded to lay into her telling her how stupid she was not knowing and finally gave her directions to the new location. The friendly crating neighbor said she would never come to one of their agility trials ever again.
The show chair didn’t even show up on Thursday or Friday, can you believe that?
Cruella’s cronies spent Friday talking about me behind my back; at ring side, at their crating area, walking by my crating area, walking to the port-a-potties. They would point fingers at me to their friends and laugh, like I’m stupid and don’t know what they are doing. Cruella’s main crony that was crated one crate over from me found GREAT JOY in asking me how my run was when she knew Dolcenea didn’t Q, then she would laugh about it and smirk to all of her friends that the Akita wasn’t an agility dog! This happened right after our standard run on Saturday, and that is when I finally had had enough and LEFT!!!
(the above picture shows the isle way for horses, dogs and vehicles that we had to crate in & the arena wall)
Needless to say this is the worst trial I’ve ever attended where the people attending including club members and their friends and family members were the meanest, nastiest and cruelest people I’ve ever met and I certainly will never return to Montana ever again!
No matter where I go for agility trials I ALWAYS find the worst most hateful psychotic horrible human beings on the planet. And I can’t believe that these same people believe they have every right in the world to treat you as rotten as possible and they feel good about it!
And to top of the worst day in agility trial history for me it all had to happen on my Birthday! I hate agility trials!!! And people wonder why I try not to talk to anyone at agility trials….DUGH!
