Stop Clamoring Already: Toad Suck Pet Show

We kicked off summer with a visit to the annual Toad Suck festival. Loyal readers will recollect that this is the very first festival Declan ever attended. His life has basically been one festival after another ever since. For the first time, Declan entered the Toad Suck Pet Show competition, with his bff Phoebe, who was suitably attired as a hamburger. It was a tough competition- all the boys and girls who had entered were quite a bit older, and had dogs that did actual tricks. Phoebe will only listen to Declan if he is holding a treat, otherwise she files him under disregard. I had forgotten to bring some training treats, but got a granola bar out of my purse and broke it into pieces so Declan could use that to bribe Phoebe with compliance.

The Emcee asked Declan what kind of dog Phoebe was, and he replied "Spaniel crossed with Burger". Declan is coming into his own comedy-wise, and he had the audience laughing pretty heartily. He ran through Phoebe's trick repetoire pretty quickly, ("Sit" and "Lie Down"), the Emcee asked if Declan could do some tricks to help catch Phoebe up to the other dogs in the show. Declan said he could sit as well, promptly sank to the grass, then popped up again and tossed one of the "training treats" from his pocket into his mouth. Not realizing, the treats were actually chunks of granola bar, the audience was aghast, but the judges were won over by Declan's commitment to his role.

We had a real Toddlers & Tiaras moment when the judges announced the winners from the "Large Dog" category and Phoebe was not among them; Declan was completely downtrodden not realizing he had pulled for a higher title. When Declan and Phoebe were called up as winners of BEST IN SHOW and awarded a ginormous trophy, Declan could not stop making this face for quite some time. This is his surprised face.