Show Cancelled…
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By Caroline Coile
Icancelled our show. The show we had been planning for a year, the show that broke all our entry records for the past decade. It wasn’t an easy decision. I have a reputation to uphold as the last person to prepare for a hurricane/metro impact/zombie apocalypse…I have handlers contacting me to make sure the show is still on, reminding me their livelihoods depend on my decision; I have all those memes on Facebook telling me “it’s no worse than the flu…”
But I also have access to reports from the World Health Organization and epidemiologists, friends in Italy who caution me to take this seriously and stay home. And as one friend put it, I had access to my own science background. And my own conscience.
I post on Facebook: “When the NBA, NCAA, NASCAR, etc. cancel spectator events, when Disneyland closes, when schools and courtrooms close, it makes the loss of a weekend dog show seem negligible in comparison. The fact is that the medical and science reports indicate that closing events is the best way to flatten the curve and avoid the situation in Italy.
“I apologize to our pro handlers who depend on their income from shows. I had to weigh the certainty of a lost finite amount of income for a few against the uncertainty of future lost income, illness and even death of possibly many. If I, and others, have made the correct decision by cancelling events as health professionals advise, then our best outcome is that it will look like we were wrong because the number of infected people won’t be the stultifying levels predicted if we do not… This is the dog community’s chance to step up and show it’s not just our dogs who can be Good Citizens.”
We weren’t the first shows to cancel, but we may have been the first to cancel proactively. A few others have been shut down because of state or county edicts. I remember wishing that had been the case; or better yet, that the AKC would step forward and mandate closures. It would have spared me some of the private messages I received berated me for being gullible and costing people their income.
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Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=181393
Posted by AnthonyA
on Apr 11 2020. Filed under Current Articles, Featured.
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