On Thursday we arrived at the Mount Isa showgrounds and met with the organisers, finding out where we were meant to set up and what other entertainers would be here with us. Roy Maloy was amongst the names she gave us. You probably remember the trouble we had with him and his agent a few months ago. So, feeling a bit anxious, we set up all our gear – fence, jumps and weave poles and tunnel, and our banner at the back of the ring. As usual, we had no performance times and were expected to work that out with the other entertainers.
We actually hadn’t rehearsed at all since we performed two weeks ago, so I was freaking out that our dogs would mess up. We did do a quick rehearsal on Thursday and it went ok.
Day One
After a quick breakfast, we grabbed the last of our gear and trekked to our area. We met up with Noah’s Pig Races, who we’d worked with before. And then I spotted Roy heading our way. I have to admit that I left in a hurry, not quite ready to face him. When I came back, Roy was gone again. We ended up performing at 10:45, 2:30, and 4:15. I pretty much avoided Roy the whole day. He did his show, which was pretty much exactly the same as last year’s, and we did ours. It was 28*C and we were performing in the sun. Tess kept trying to run off, again, so she was on lead for most of our shows. Sparkie was slower than I liked with her agility. We had a new prop for one of our routines – a box with a lid. We’d only been working with it for about five days before the show, but Sparkie did what she was meant to with hardly any problems. Freya was fast and focused as usual. At the last performance of the day, Lassie knocked down a weave pole and the jump.
The other entertainment for the show were the pig races, Roy Maloy, a couple of creepy stiltwalkers, roving musicians, a petting zoo, and a squeaking clown (more about him later). The stiltwalkers were seriously creepy – wearing masks and everything. I saw the guy bend down to talk to a little kid, who burst into tears, poor thing.
Day Two
A cooler day. Roy didn’t talk to me much, which was interesting because last year he was always talking to me. I was fine with him ignoring me though. Between our last two shows there wasn’t much time, so instead of walking all the way back to the bus we just hung around in the shade. Freya didn’t like that much so I was off walking her and trying to get her to calm down. The stiltwalkers were walking around and Jireh was getting scared, so Jessica was looking after him. There was a clown who squeaked instead of talking, and he came up to Chantel and offered her a lolly. Chantel said no. He then wanted to give her a high five. Chantel said no again. Then he squeezed her cheek. Chantel, of course, glared at him. He backed off a little, and then pointed a water pistol at her and squirted her in the face! Poor Chantel was really upset. After that we all went back to our shady spot and kept a lookout for crazy clowns! Chantel eventually calmed down and Roy had gone home after his last show, so we got our heads back in the game and our last show was great. Sparkie was weaving really well and fast, although Freya kept pausing in her routine to look at Lassie for some reason.
So that was the end of the Mount Isa Show for 2014. Meeting Roy again wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. His show seemed flatter than last year, and he said to Mummy later that he was thinking of retiring. Fine with me!
We now have a two month break between shows, which we’ll be using to trial a new dog training method (more on that in a later post). My Auntie is coming over to visit from NZ at the end of July, so there’s that to look forward to as well.
