We made a quick dash of a trip to deliver some animals to customers and attend ABGA Nationals. It was a really rushed trip and pretty darned insane. But the upside is another handful of goats are now where they are supposed to be and we no longer owe anyone semen straws or embyros that have been sitting with us, paid for, so when I am finally done with the Goat Program, I can be done believing I still need to be accessible to Goat World.
Nationals itself was a real trip. We took one of our young White Mafia fullblood bucklings to exhibit. We haven’t been keeping him as a “show goat” so he isn’t in competitive condition - but my point was to allow people (specifically 2 of the people I know are interested in purchasing him) to see: he is verified as a Show Correct white fullblood.
A big reason breeding white fullbloods is fun for me is that there is a challenge in making them in a way where they are show correct. This is why most of the whites are either percentages or someone has lied about parentage and they aren’t actually fullbloods (a dead giveaway is spackle on ears which is a dominant feature of another breed called Savanna whose white is dominant genetically instead of a dilution).
Ultimately - the fun for me in a goat program is the challenge. Again, this is why I am a Breeder and not a Shower.
BUT, it was so amusing to be at Nationals. I still don’t have a crazy desire for a ribbon, I tried, but I just don’t. Yet I really love to watch goat shows.
This is a thing that sticks in my head - I love to watch goats showing. Because I know what goes into them, its impressive to me, to see someone walking a quality animal into the ring, making it walk calmly, making it stop and stand in a way that highlights the animals strengths. What I’m talking about is that the HUMANS can be every bit as impressive as the goat. Some of these folks do it effortlessly. They glide into the ring, goat in perfect step, stop when they should, lead the animal in a perfect circle and no joke, its like watching an orchestrated dance.
Logan Fife, a young Shower, showed our baby buck “Fade To White” at Nationals. He did an amazing job because Fade is not yet trained. Still, Logan is skilled enough that he displayed the animal wonderfully. There are others too. I watched showers with all their normal tricks, tickling a belly to improve a topline, kicking shavings to hide feet that aren’t beautiful, circling a goat who is unruly so the audience doesn’t focus on the goat’s lack of training, but I also watched people who are so experienced and good at it that they don’t even look like they are aware they are walking a goat. There is masterful skill in some of these people; they can know what the goat is doing while still paying attention to their own posture, where the judge is looking, and how the animal looks from a distance. The animal looks amazing, they look amazing, it is truly an art. It deserves far more credit than it receives.
And then there was the drama - geez its on par with the drama amongst photographers, MUAs, and designers who are at magazine level. Literally.
I know a lady who bought a buck, then it won, and then the sale fell apart. I won’t get into all the silly details, but geez at the amount of theatrics directly responsible for a failed transaction. How puerile to ruin a business transaction over any inconsequential issue. Let me repeat that: it was a failed transaction - as in failure. In a successful business, the #1 rule is Allow no Failed Transactions, because to do so, is to fail. Cherish your business transactions. Behave as if you were the other party in the transaction. Conduct yourself in a way that makes people feel good about spending their money with your business. Because to do it any other way, is to guarantee you fail…eventually.
Similarly, if you are purchasing a good or service - behave in a way that makes that business choose you to give breaks to, to give discounts to, make them decide you are the customer they want and will go out of their way for.
This has always seemed very simple to me.
Also is the fact that ABGA seats got served for an upcoming lawsuit - that’s also an interesting story. I’ll shelve that for now because it deserves its own intelligent take but know that it was unsettling to see the shock of so many people that Board Members were served at Nationals. What shocked me is how many people did not know beforehand that was going to happen. I assumed since I expected it, so did everyone else.
But the bigger point is: I did have fun. I saw beautiful animals, and strong people. I laughed a lot because remember, these ARE a lot of “salt of the earth” kind of people. The food sucked, it was absolutely horrid. I wished I had been able to enjoy some downtime and wander the pens a bit more. I would like to be able to talk to people about a goat they have in their pen that I liked. But Nationals is not the place for that. These folks are under a lot of pressure. I am doing a lot of business because of the dispersal. Maybe those opportunities to enjoy myself are at smaller shows or with less serious Show Farms. I don’t know, but it did make me realize, even without a program, I will probably always enjoy any location that has goats on it.
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