My 1st Creative Grooming Competition (also my 1st creative groom!!!!!!!!)
As soon as I heard that Nichola was organizing a grooming comp in Northern Ireland with a creative class I entered immediately. All I needed then was a dog & a plan……. my own retriever became the model and was to become a tiger.
I ordered the equipment needed and found a portable power pack as the event was to be held in a field. The airbrush arrived a week before the comp and but not the colours, luckily for me Lori Craig had brought them over from America to the Christies seminar she was demonstrating at. They were posted straight away & I had them in time for the competition, no time to practice though. At this stage I had forgotten that the competition was held in front of the general public!!
Max is a super dog & he hopped willingly into the car, we drove to Newry and he jumped on the table for his big modelling moment. Judges came around & we were off.
I trimmed all his fluffy body hair off and leg feathers, nearly all of his lovely flag tail and it was time for the tiger. On with the rubber gloves and loaded up the airbrush – which didn’t work – Aarrggggh!!!! At one stage the judge came over and asked if I would like more time at the end to make up for the disaster, “No’ I said, “thank you but I need to get out of here as quickly as possible, not stay longer”.
The general public were about 2 feet away from me behind a rope divider and I could here comments of sympathy and pity so I had 2 choices retire or keep trying & see what happened. Not being one to give up easily there was no choice so I just kept trying different consistencies with the colours & viscosity.
50 minutes it took me to get the machine & colours working but finally the ink blew out of the tip of the airbrush.
I think I produced the quickest Tiger ever, 15mins later Max had the orange layer finished and was ready for his stripes
All the way through the groom Max’s tail was wagging, he is such a wonderful part of our family. Amazingly we were first to finish our groom & had plenty of time to clean up & change in costume ready for judging.
WE WERE PLACED 2nd and were totally delighted. So delighted that I forgot all the worries of the previous hour. My friend was competing in the competition too and came over to say she could hear the public saying “oh no, that machine is broken” and similar comments, then she could hear them saying “oh wow, look at the tiger” so she knew we were doing ok and back in the race.
After the prize fiving Max was photographed by dozens and dozens of people, every body wanted their picture with Max the Tiger.
I will always remember such an eventful first creative competition and so will Max.
