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Our local (Frederick, MD) 4-H Packgoat club had their annual obstacle competition on September 20th. It was an overall great event and reasonably well attended. We've been spending some time building obstacles and writing official rules and judging guidelins, so it was a great opportunity to put that all to a test as well as all of the hard work the kids have been doing for the past year.
My daughter was showing "Oreo", a 2 1/2 year old Alpine and her lead packgoat. The night before the competition we do a "Spectator Class" event where we demonstrate what packgoats can do and then invite the audience to lead a goat around some of the obstacles. Oreo is a ham, loves the attention and so after several other goats had done a few rounds and retireed for the evening, Oreo was still going strong .... until the last of the line had a chance to "walk the goat". We got a lot of good visibility and the Frederick News Post interviewed a bunch of us and spotlighted us in the paper the following day with a real nice article.
The competition the following day began with promise and Oreo was looking really good:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30678220&l=6f677c15b8&id=1044149268
But then I think he decided he had done the darn obstacles just one to many times ... and the cows we shared a tent with kept him up all night ... so he just stopped:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30678261&l=b58735c854&id=1044149268
Coaxing with a treat didn't really help ... eventually my daughter dropped the lead and walked away and of course Oreo would get up to follow, not liking to be left alone. This cycle of Oreo sitting in front of obstacle, daughter walking away, Oreo getting up to follow, repeated quite a few more times before they were able to complete the course.
Though it may have cost them the Grand Champ ribbon, it sure was a bit of comic relief and good fun for the audience.
My daughter was showing "Oreo", a 2 1/2 year old Alpine and her lead packgoat. The night before the competition we do a "Spectator Class" event where we demonstrate what packgoats can do and then invite the audience to lead a goat around some of the obstacles. Oreo is a ham, loves the attention and so after several other goats had done a few rounds and retireed for the evening, Oreo was still going strong .... until the last of the line had a chance to "walk the goat". We got a lot of good visibility and the Frederick News Post interviewed a bunch of us and spotlighted us in the paper the following day with a real nice article.
The competition the following day began with promise and Oreo was looking really good:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30678220&l=6f677c15b8&id=1044149268
But then I think he decided he had done the darn obstacles just one to many times ... and the cows we shared a tent with kept him up all night ... so he just stopped:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30678261&l=b58735c854&id=1044149268
Coaxing with a treat didn't really help ... eventually my daughter dropped the lead and walked away and of course Oreo would get up to follow, not liking to be left alone. This cycle of Oreo sitting in front of obstacle, daughter walking away, Oreo getting up to follow, repeated quite a few more times before they were able to complete the course.
Though it may have cost them the Grand Champ ribbon, it sure was a bit of comic relief and good fun for the audience.