Seymour wins the contest!!!

Yesterday, I went to a dog event that was at the fairgrounds. It was put on by our local dog adoption group, DAWG (Douglas Animal Welfare Group), and they had all kinds of pet-related booths and different events going on. Most of the booths that involved dog food, were giving away free samples of food and treats. The local feed store, Eastern Sierra Feed, gave me a 1-lb. bag of senior dog food (that's a big sample!) and a full-size bottle of anti-itch shampoo. They had a silent auction going on, raffles and drawings were constantly happening, and there were several different contests to sign up for.
One contest was the classic "owner-pet look-alike" contest. The next was the "pet who looks like a celebrity" contest. I think the Benji look-alike won over the Marmaduke and Paris Hilton (Bwah-ha-ha!) look-alikes. The last contest was, of course, the "pets who do tricks" contest. They couldn't get anybody to sign up, including me, because I had been in the corner trying to get my dogs to do their best trick of letting me put a cookie on their nose and then they sort of flip it up and catch it. Well, they were just so excited about all the attention they were getting, that they both kept flinging it way back behind them. I gave up and decided I definitely would NOT be entering the contest. Well, the announcer started roaming around the big warehouse recruiting people and their dogs for the contest. So, I told him, "Ok, I will probably do it if I can get them to do it on a practice run". Well, what do you know, they both did it flawlessly, so I hurried over to sign up! Now they call us all up to the back of the stage. The first dog sits and shakes. Seymour is next, and he sits so perfectly, so I put the cookie on his nose, and in a lightning-fast movement, he eats the cookie! I immediately turned to the crowd and raised my arms in victory. I don't know, I was so excited that he did it, it was just a reaction. The crowd cheered with me.
So, Sierra was next. I was a little embarrassed because I had signed her up for the same trick, thinking that maybe if one of them missed it, at least the other one might catch the cookie. Well, I couldn't get her to keep her nose level, so I couldn't even balance the cookie. I had to tell the guy I was moving on to her default tick, so as not to disappoint the crowd. Since she was already sitting I told her to "shake" and then I tell her "other hand" and I switch hands, and she switches and shakes with her other paw. Over the years she has done this trick, she of course knows that she will get a cookie, so she does it really fast, and even before I say "other hand" she is already doing it. It is so funny. I think she did it so fast it really didn't impress the audience. So, the other two dogs did their "tricks" of sitting...and...um...sitting. That last dog, named Dude, didn't have enough room on the stage to do some of the other tricks his boy tried to get him to do (roll over, and crawl), which I thought was kind of unfair. So, after several minutes of heart-pounding anticipation, the judges finally made their decision, and it was announced that Dude was the first runner up, and that Seymour was the winner!!! Woohoo!! I was so proud of my boy! Heheheh! Boy was he a celebrity after that. Everyone was saying how great he did, and you could tell he was so proud!
I had to post this picture without a cookie because I will probably never be able to snap a picture of the cookie on his nose. He's too fast. I will work on that next. Letting it stay there until I say to eat it. Now that will be a feat!