Cheza in the ring

On the August bank holiday weekend 2003, we took our marquee to the Earls Barton Steam Rally and Country Show near Northampton. This was one of the venues we had ear-marked to re-attend after last year. We liked everything about this show: It's a three day event with a bigger than usual variety of attractions - everything from model boats to steam rollers to birds of prey - and of course, wolves. Last year we didn't take the wolves due to the fact that we couldn't get a field to walk them in. This year, we had better luck and we took Peyto & Cheza there on the Monday to do some short walks around the adjoining field with visitors. From the moment we got there, both wolves were clearly excited and enjoying the whole scene.

One thing we wanted to try there was doing a ring show with the wolves. We've never done this with them before and we asked the show organiser if there was a spare 10 minute slot in the main show ring in the afternoon.

Fortunately there was indeed a spare slot and at about 2:30 we walked Peyto & Cheza about 300 yards across the showground to the ring. To say that it was "busy" was an understatement; the place was heaving and very noisy. Although P&C are used to noisy machinery, they aren't used to so much of it all in one place and surrounded by so many people. As we had half suspected, Peyto backed out before we reached the ring; a steam organ near the main entrance to the showground proved too much for him and we let him wander back to the walking field. Cheza however, marched resolutely on. His body language was just amazing - it said simply "Wow, Loving this!". He was completely confident and fascinated by everything.

We got him to the show ring and walked him around it a couple of times while one of us did a radio mike commentary. (That's all a ring show is - we don't do circus tricks!). We were actually a bit too close to the edge though and Cheza spent quite a lot of time pulling to go out and greet the people sitting along it. After a couple of circuits, we decided to quit while we were ahead and walked Cheza out of the ring to inspect the row of traction engines and have a wander around the ploughing field.

After 5 minutes of general exploring we led him back across the showground to the walking field - where he promptly climbed into a tiny, galvanised cattle water trough by the fence and sat down in it to cool off. Dozens of people streaming past the field to the car park stopped to take pictures of this unusual water feature.

The field we were in was a bit too small to do much more than wander around in circles but about 25 people enjoyed wandering with us and we picked up quite a lot of new memberships in the process.

Towards the end of the afternoon, as the showground began to empty out, we let P&C go for another walk around and explore some of the outer regions of the show. Again, Cheza just couldn't get enough of it and wanted to explore the whole show ground - but again, Peyto decided it was all too much for him. So a while later we loaded the boys into the van and went home.

(By the way. The wolves are now pretty well happy to travel in the van. Our long and careful program of habituation has worked well and they really don't object to going in it. We now have two very predictable, simple problems: 1) They obviously don't want to go home if they are having a good time and 2) when they've had enough and want to go home they pull us into it.

I must thank all the show stewards (who were a lovely friendly lot) and especially the car park steward who escorted us to the show ring.