Be Honest... How Dirty, Nasty and Sweaty have you been after training...

[TuMicks]

I thought at first this question might best be posed to Retriever Field Sports enthusiasts. Then I got to thinking, heck... anyone who spends time with their lab can get pretty "earthy" (so to speak.)

Today it was in the mid 90's (a pretty decent day here) and we were doing our typical training (a triple mark, two converging birds across a small pond then a run-to-the-next-county long bird into a field.) Each of us throwing marks have a sack of ducks (for whom death is not a new experience). They start out pretty much frozen, but inevitably they begin to thaw and eeeeeuuuuw.

Add to that, I was at a critical hair stage, in desperate need of a haircut, sweaty, stinky, wearing my oldest pair of trail shoes that were full of stickers from the field grasses, miscellaneous scratches on my legs from sage brush. Then, naturally, I've run my dog through a pond and she rubs against me and shook all over me, thus messing up my oldest pair of shorts and T-shirt... and on the way home decided to stop to buy milk. I must have looked and smelled like the most pitiful bag lady ever. It never dawned on me to be embarrassed. Just another day doing dogs.

Am I weird or do other people do this?

[silverfz]

Yes your weird ...... It was an opening.

Its like meeting my mother in law for the first time.i pull in front of this girl I been dating from a motorcycle trip.3 weeks on the road ,tenting and unshaven. At that time it was rainy and my cheap bags were not quite waterproof so thrashbags covering them.
Needless to say she was petrified.


Honestly most people past the 20s will look at u with envy.

[Labradorks]

I'm pretty fair-weather when it comes to field work.

[Snowshoe]

I could be your twin. A place we walk is beyond the closest grocery and a double trip to the store if I don't stop on the way home with the dog. My dirty, sweaty stinky trips are limited though. I won't stop when it's hot and in winter we stay clean so it's only spring and fall when I look bad.

[Anna Scott]

We often go out for breakfast or lunch after a training. The restaurant we frequent calls us the dog people and really don't care what we look like. It is the colour of our money that they care about. We are always welcome as I take all of the club groups there for our judges dinners. When I worked I spent a fortune on business suits and clothing for work (shoes were a passion). Now my favourite shoes have a hole in the toe, I have only bought jeans over the last few years and my T shirts would make great scrub rags. Welcome to my world, I love it.

[POPTOP]

Not specifically dog related but the dogs were around. DH was putting in a small section of cement sidewalk. Hot, humid day, sweating, cement dust then mixed cement all over me. DH looks at me and says he thinks he about 2 bags short, would I go to HD and pick up a couple. Off I go with cement even in my hair from brushing it out of my eyes. I'm sure I did not smell the best. At least at HD they understand the situation.

[TuMicks]

We often go out for breakfast or lunch after a training. The restaurant we frequent calls us the dog people and really don't care what we look like. It is the colour of our money that they care about. We are always welcome as I take all of the club groups there for our judges dinners. When I worked I spent a fortune on business suits and clothing for work (shoes were a passion). Now my favourite shoes have a hole in the toe, I have only bought jeans over the last few years and my T shirts would make great scrub rags. Welcome to my world, I love it.

I used to teach nursing. My shoes had to be whiter than white, my lab coat crisp and ironed... the most flattering scrubs I could find. Make up. Hair in order... I don't miss that at all. (Besides... dogs are much more willing to learn and don't whine as much as nursing students.)

[barry581]

With the way the humidity has been this summer, I'm drenched from a quick walk around the yard!!!!

[Scoutpout]

Yup, been there done that, this past holiday Monday in fact....I forgot we had some flights booked, and stopped in at the office directly from field training. You know, the lovely 2nd-day-out clothes because why get another set dirty for the morning's training, and we were using the afore-mentioned death-is-not-new-to-them-ducks (in fact at the end of training thinned out the "re-useable" pile, with about 4 ducks deemed too-well-used) Was working away in my office with a slightly-stinky but at least dry dog, wondering where the well-dead-duck odour was coming from, when i hear the front door open....

Manage to corral Scout in my office, and go out to see who's coming in, and i realize its customers....new customers.....yikes. Have i mentioned that olive drab is NOT my colour??? and there i am in olive drab capri's and an olive drab t-shirt (hey, it has sequins on it! a step up!), hair kinda sorta in a messy ponytail, whistle and call lanyard around my neck. And to top it off, i stink. no 2 ways around it. between sweat, dirt, and dead duck, yuck. Try to keep a safe distance away from them, and fortunately the instructor pulled in right then, so i said go introduce yourselves, and retreated back to the office.

They head out, i figure the coast is clear, let Scout out of my office, and of course one of the pilots shows up right then with his 2 kids (older teenagers) and the daughter's boyfriend, all of whom get very enthusiastically greeted by the slightly-stinky Scout. Fortunately for me, that pilot had had 2 labs and hunted, so he just laughed. The daughter';s boyfriend was a bit unsure, not brought up around dogs, but the pilot now has GSD, so the boyfriend has had a crash course in larger dogs.

I have stopped off at the grocery store on the way home from training, because like Snowshoe, otherwise its back 20 minutes again, and who wants to do that? There's a little mom-and-pop restaurant not far away that i've eaten at a fair bit, and more than once hunters have come in obviously straight from hunting. nobody gives them a 2nd glance.