Clean Run - April 2017 - 53

I've never seen a ghost in any cheap
dog agility motel. The supernatural
resides at more upscale digs, pricey
places with elevators and baroquely
carpeted hallways and tree mazes.
Duvet coverlets, complimentary
bath products, and mini bars are
probably overrated. I bring my own
beverages and soap, and usually
there's a bottle opener conveniently screwed into the bathroom wall.
There might not be chandeliers
and rooftop gardens, but you'll see
sights you might not see anywhere
else. Giant triple-decker trucks filled with live chickens, parked
near the only shrubbery suitable for a dog potty area. Bustling
illegal commerce conducted out of shopping carts. Whole
basketball teams extracting themselves out of a station wagon
like a clown car, and piling themselves into the room next
door to yours.
It will be very close to coffee. This is a guarantee. Rule of thumb.
A cheap motel can't be that terrible if it's within shouting distance to morning coffee.
When you check out, you'll need to avert your eyes from the
inappropriate mirror placement in the lobby. If the sleepy clerk
asks about your stay, stay chipper. "I never knew what crack
smoke smelled like until last night! Turns out jamming towels
under the door jam to the connecting room didn't block it
out, so maybe they were cooking meth? Just so you know that
wasn't coming from my room," or mentioning how cool it was
that not just one but three cop cars showed up when whatever
was going down at the end of the corridor might get you a
comped room, or at least 20% off your stay. Bargains galore!

and how to get to them from the
red jump, last night will have faded
into a murky, soft focus dream. Many
aggressive Snooker plans may have
sprung from sleep deprivation.
Chances are you weren't the only
competitor out there at 3 am in
the dog barf potty shrubbery. Small
world! Cheap motel manners advise
that we avert our eyes when it's the
middle of the night. I don't see your
orthodontic appliance and pillow hair
if you don't see my pony jammies
tucked into my green rain boots.
You learn how to function like this, in dog agility. Not so different from the all nighters of a different era. The older you get,
smoky bars and wild parties devolve into just plain old low
standards, where the big splurge is an extra venti grande coffee after surviving the night. Maybe even two of them. Hey, the
crummier the motel, the more classes we can enter.
Where do I want to stay? Aside from my warm, soft, and quiet
bed at home? A vacation cabin on a sweeping ocean vista somewhere, a cozy camper trailer surrounded by the majesty of
Joshua trees, a walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village would
all be swell. But if you're like me, this is what you've got, another
weekend night at the crappy motel shoved between the bowling alley and the freeway near the fairgrounds. Turn 50 and you
can get an extra 10% off and free Wi-Fi if you join AARP. Tell
them I sent you. A grim and even lower setting of the bar. I also
never thought I'd wear sweat pants out to dinner, but there you
have it. Such is the glamorous agility lifestyle. Embrace it, enter
that second Standard class, and hope you don't have to burn
your sheets when you get home. D

When dawn rolls around and everybody's back in the arena,
stumbling through that first walk-through, counting up points
Laura Hartwick spends a lot of time trying to get better at agility and walking around on a perennial vision quest in the forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains with the
brave dogs of Team Small Dog. You can find her at www.teamsmalldog.com.

The Julius-K9 IDC Harness
now comes in patterns as well as solid colors.
cleanrun.com - where all Julius K-9 harnesses ship for free in the USA
April 17 | Clean Run

http://www.teamsmalldog.com http://www.cleanrun.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - April 2017