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ANTA/Past Events/Syracuse98
Revised 09/23/98
On June 6th & 7th, Barb and Phil Ferro hosted the first ANTA event in the Syracuse, NY, area at their lovely farm. The weather was unseasonably cool, beginning in the sixties in the early morning and rising into the mid-seventies Saturday afternoon under bright, clear skies. Sunday was overcast with rain in the afternoon. There were no flying insects!
The event was set in a gently rolling pasture, close cut and over two football fields long by about fifty yards wide, providing ample room to conduct many activities simultaneously. A special bonus was that the contour of the land allowed the lure course to be "hidden" from the dogs perspective such that this activity did not excite or distract dogs engaged in other pursuits. The go-to-ground earth was in an area cut out of the brush on one side of the pasture and was setoff by a wall of foliage with an access path. It was convenient yet isolated. And the dirt was relatively easy to dig for burying the liners. All together a first-rate venue.
Following coffee and donuts for everyone, veterinarian and go-to-ground enthusiast Karen Boyd led off by presenting an introduction to earthdog and then oversaw practice throughout the day. Peggy Metcalf and Donna O'Hara brought the liners and created the earth to include an above-ground liner for beginners, a twenty-foot introductory tunnel with one turn, and a thirty-foot Junior Earth with two turns.
A variety of agility equipment was available both days and Rondo and I concentrated with some success on the dog walk and seesaw. Meanwhile, Lori Pelletier conducted grooming demonstrations and about a dozen people and their dogs partook of the Canine Good Citizen tests -- Rondo and I passed on Sunday morning.
Steve Beck, the Ferro's farm manager, in addition to clearing the earthdog area and preparing the pasture for the event, setup temporary fencing for a wonderful flat race course. It even had a working gate. Competition was fierce as is obvious in some of the accompanying pictures.
As mentioned above, we were able to hide the lure course from the other activities such that we were able to run the lure on and off throughout the afternoon. As always, it was very popular.
The pièce de résistance of the day, however, was the hay ride. Steve Beck guided a wagon of Norfolks and their owners along trails normally used by the Ferro's for their horse carriage. We rode to the crest of their property from which we had a spectacular view to the horizon over forty miles distant and to the seeming edge of a cliff where we could look down perhaps a thousand feet into a valley. Wonderful and exhilarating! Amazingly, all the dogs were completely calm on the hay wagon.
And Saturday night we retired to a nearby restaurant for a buffet dinner and conversation.
I think everyone had a great time and I hope to see this venue used again. My thanks to the Ferro's - Barb, Phil, & Matt - Steve Beck, Peggy Metcalf, Donna O'Hara, and all the other unsung volunteers. It was a great weekend.
Ed Plummer
ANTIC, September, 1998
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