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At the end of March, Louie, Marge, Red (wait - who's Red?! Yeah, I haven't formally introduced him on the MargeBlog yet), and I traveled to the AKC Rally National Championships in Perry, Georgia.  Marge has qualified for other Rally National Championships in the past, but the perfect situation presented itself this year for us to go.   It helped that the competition was in Georgia - Marge's home state, where she came from.  Certainly makes for a good story.

We rented a GMC Yukon XL - an absolutely massive, fully loaded truck.  It isn't that we couldn't have fit in my Ford Escape, but this was a lot more comfortable.  Yes, I drove it too!

Marge did great at the competition, with scores of 86, 99, 98, and 97 out of 100.  If not for that 86 (a 10-point hit that we suffered was likely my fault) - we would have been 29th out of 148 dogs.  Instead, we were 56th.  Still amazing.  I beamed with pride the entire time.

The other really special part of this trip was the detour we took on the way home.  About 2 1/2 hours to the north of the competition is a town by the name of Ellijay.  Ellijay just happens to be where Marge came from before she was transported to New York and I adopted her.

We wrestled a bit about whether to drive through there or not - it was a bit out of the way - but ultimately decided that we had to.  Chances are that I'd never find myself in Georgia, with Marge, ever again.  How amazing would it be to say that I took her home?

Before our tour officially began, we took the dogs to the Chattahoochee River Recreation Area not far away for a hike.  How fun!

Our first official stop was to the Cherokee County Animal Shelter - a open admission, but progressive, shelter.  This is more than likely the place that Marge and her litter came through before being pulled by the now abolished Noah's Bark Rescue Group.  I went in and said I was there to give a donation, but risked having the shelter staff think I was nuts and told them part of the story after cutting them a check.  They seemed genuinely interested to hear about Marge.  (They did send me a card thanking me for my donation in MEMORY of Marge week or so later -- yikes! I'd like to think that they meant in memory of her stint there but I know it was just an honest mistake!)

Before leaving, I went back to the kennels.  I knew that I shouldn't have, but I did.  It has been about 8 1/2 years since I've been in a shelter, and I guess I forgot how intense the emotions would be.  After a bunch of tails wagging at me from behind kennel doors, I couldn't take it for longer than a couple of minutes and went back to the car to bawl.  It made the whole thing so real... to think that either of my dogs could have had a setting like that be their final landing spot was a gut-wrenching thought.  It was especially tough to think of Marge, given the fear issues that she used to have and other quirks that to this day make her unique, not finding her way to me.  I don't mean to give myself a pat on the back, and I am not perfect, but even to this day, Marge is not a normal dog and I truly wonder what could have happened to her if she was in the hands of someone who treated her differently than I have.

Our next stop was to the town of Ellijay itself.  We drove around it for a few minutes.  It had a touristy feel, with antique shops and gift stores and even municipal parking, but it's pretty far away from everything, so I'm not sure who's going there to visit.  It was very cute.

While there, I plugged in what I believe to be her former foster family's address in to the car GPS.  I have it because I am good at stalking online (and proud of it).  I can admit all of this without any fear of them being upset or anything... because they are both deceased.

We were taken on some twisty mountain backroads (no dirt roads, though!), and reached a gate to a private road.  We couldn't go any further, but my guess is that the house that Marge lived in was just beyond here.  Really cool.

We let the dogs potty in a park back in Ellijay proper before hitting the road again for our first real portion of the trip home.  What an amazing experience. My rescue dog from Georgia got to go back nine years later and compete on the national stage before getting to visit her hometown. Very few, if any, people are able to say something like that. Really think about it. Let it sink in.