Well the Pooch Party was a great success, we had a good turn out and it would seem that everyone enjoyed themselves. The games all had prizes and people were keen to take part.
It was so hard to be heard over all the noise that I still haven’t got my voice back!
We played pass the Paw-cel with Ralph the bulldog winning a very impressive knotted dog toy and Millie the Labradoodle taking home a lovely purse. I would say that the owners were too polite here, gently removing one layer of paper at a time, personally, I would have passed it to my dog who would no doubt have torn off the lot in one go.
Then on to the sausage race, a game of skill and tactics, well, not really. The dog has to eat a line of sausage pieces quicker than the other dogs, very simple really, or so you would think. We run heats of 4 dogs although we did allow the tiny Chihuahua’s, Beau-dog & Lady to team up. There was a bit of cheating going on here with people veering into the other dogs lane in an attempt to distract them, pushing of owners, it was a mess!!. The overall winner was the lovely Oscar, a rescued Border Collie. Olive my little Weimaraner, demonstrated the ease in which only a weimaraner can devour food and should really have won.
The owners went to a lot of trouble with fancy dress outfits, Olive was a fairy Princess complete with wings and wand, Roxy & Py were Christmas trees, Mille was a Christmas Sack, and Breeze the Rottweiler came in a cunning disguise as her brother, Jeeves, the Russian Black Terrier!! (Very well done Breeze, or so we thought until the sausage race when it became apparent that we had been misled and it was in fact Jeeves!! )
Les judged the costumes and first prize went to Elsa who came as a K9 Solutions Puppy School boy complete with baseball cap, shorts and braces. Well done Ruth & Elsa for keeping the costume on.
Runner up prizes went to Lyca & Zeke, the Papillon & the Tibetan Spaniel, Jura the weimaraner and Millie the Labradoodle.
We had a raffle with various prizes, the top prize being a free one to one training session with me which is usually £30. Oscar the rescue Border Collie won this and I am looking forward to our training session, he is such a sweet lad.
Cheryl with Teddy received a consolation prize for her sad face when she thought she had won something on the raffle and special mention has to be made of her catching abilities. Well done Cheryl.
Then the final event of the evening …….. the cup race.
The owner has to carry a cup full of water whilst holding their dogs lead spilling as little as possible. By the time we got to the final, I was soaked and we had had to empty the mop bucket twice!! We had to up the game for the finalists, Beryl & Jet, Kim & Ruby and Ian & Jeeves and Cheryl & Teddy & Millie, we also had to employ a few distraction tactics, which involved me standing and jumping in their way, calling their dogs and throwing treats on the floor, needless to say I got very wet again.
Beryl & Jet were not to be distracted though and took the prize. Well done to them. There are videos and pictures on our Facebook page so take a look.
My thanks to the team for their help and support, not only at the party but all year through and to all of those who came along and made the Pooch Party such fun.
Have a great Christmas everyone and looking forward to seeing you all in 2011.
