Bark-B-Que

On Saturday we went to the 2nd Annual Bark-B-Que at the Animal Enrichment Center in Vancouver. They had vendor booths with all kinds of products and services (no freebies, though), animal adoptions (there was this really, really cute little grey one) as well as places set up where you could try sheep herding, dock jumping, lure coursing, and agility. Guess which one we tried? Yes, we headed right for the lure coursing. It was just a small course set up in a big loop – maybe 100 yards total in about 60 feet of a polygonish circle. It was fine for the Golden retrievers and German shepherds who just jogged after the lure and didn’t go very fast and didn’t have to worry about the corners. Of course, the other dogs all stood around nicely watching this toy get tugged over the ground while my dogs are going crazy. There was this nice couple there that was trying to talk to us about whippets because they were thinking about getting one and we had to keep telling them “Really, they aren’t like this. Normally they are very quiet and reserved. They just go nuts when they see a lure!” It was kind of embarrassing, actually.

And speaking of embarrassing, when it was our turn to run, I went around this car (I had Carmen behind it so she couldn’t see the lure and would stop acting like a lunatic) and took the path less traveled to the lure. When I stepped on the grass I was hurrying and not really watching where I was going and my foot hit this hole that was covered by grass. I tripped and fell all the way down on my chest. It was so embarrassing. Nothing like having the fat lady make the earth move. To their credit no one laughed and everyone was very concerned. I just got my knee all muddy and tweaked my knee and ankle a little, so I was okay.

To be honest, we were totally stupid in letting the girls run this small of a course. They didn’t have enough room to really stretch out and ran too fast to take the sharp curves well. Carmen got tangled up in the lure and rolled into the fence. It happened so fast I’m still not sure what actually happened. She got some bruises and a couple of good line burns, poor thing. I felt so guilty. I should have known better than to send them into that course. I’m not worthy to be a whippet mom!

After the lure coursing we wandered around for a while and checked out all the booths. Our vet was there, so we chatted with her for a while and Sophie tried to help herself to Dr. Tracy’s trail mix. We got roped into being costume contest judges. There weren’t very many people that entered, so I ran out to the car and grabbed my race bag. Somehow the old pumpkin costume was in there, so Carmen went as a pumpkin and Sophie went as a racing greyhound. Sophie came in third behind Gidget, a teeny tiny 1 ½ pound Chihuahua who was wearing a dress with a hat and sunglasses and pierced ears and a last minute addition who had a little pink dress on. How can you compete with that? I had the camera in my pocket, but since I was “showing” the dogs, that was stupid. So here is a picture after the event was over.:



I was going to post a picture of the winner but she wouldn’t hold still. I have a bunch of pictures of her back end and the one picture I did manage to get was shooting into the sun.