The Tales of Lilly, The Mud Life Dog
Sun Worshipping
Hula Girl
by Karen Lee Turner
Just over a month ago we decided (well I did) that one of the benefits of having a dog is the ability to enter local dog shows. I don't mean the Crufts-style shows where all the dogs attributes have to be up to an exactling standard, no I mean the type that have classes such as Waggiest Tail, Best Trick and the one that caught my eye, Fancy Dress.
Being a woman who has the penchant for dressing up myself, and have even got the delectable Damian and my mum involved too, I found the chance to have a go with Lilly irresistable. The event was just something that popped up in Facebook, and I thought why not, then completely forgot about it. The night before Facebook then proceeded to remind me about it, so I grabbed my box of costume stuff down from on top of the wardrobe, and mooched around to see if there was anything I could convert quickly. Well I found an old grass skirt that I wore around 25 years ago when Damian and I used to work in Ritzy nightclub, and a couple of leis, and decided to make Lilly into a hula girl. I had no idea if she would tolerate being dressed up, but she is pretty chill so I thought I'd try it out in the middle of the kitchen. A bit of trimming later she looked adorable and didn't mind wandering about with it on.Yep we were good to go. Whilst this was occurring Damian was saying that if I dress her up he will disown me, and will definitely not be involved. Who cares about what he thinks, his two girls were heading to Preston with or without him.
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THE MUD LIFE MAGAZINE
The following morning we headed off to Samlesbury Hall in Preston with a very happy dog (she's always happy, though a tad whiny, at heading out somewhere different), and experienced our first local dog show as proud parents. I'm not sure Lilly had ever been around so many dogs all in one place. She was in mega-sniff mode, and was also being nosed around the derriére at the same time by lots of other doggie snouts, and loving every minute. I headed to the classes table and was torn with entering her in Waggiest Tail (she is very waggy) or do as I had intended and enter her in the Fancy Dress class. With Damian's disowning words echoing in my ears I hesitated, but when I found out that the waggy class had nearly every dog in the place signed up, and the fancy dress was less subscribed I opted for a bit of dressing up.
