Here we are enjoying a early morning romp with other Pyrs and their owners.
This is Buddy with his costume on. Thirty seconds later he was only wearing the ruffles around his neck.
Buddy and Dakota guard our lunch table.
Here we are in the rescue parade.
In preparation for the workshops we listened to lectures about the activities.
This is the area for the canine good citizen test on the first day. Todd talked to the facilitator and then Buddy took and passed the test on the second day. The test was run by a very nice lady with two beautiful wolfhounds.
What a ham!
Step 1 of the LGD test - make nice with the goats from outside the pen.
Step 2 - get in side and show them who's boss in a firm, non-threatening way.
What a day!
Unfortunately we were out of vacation days so we couldn't drive up to Westfield until after work on Friday. My parents have been wonderful about all of our travel and again, graciously agreed to have the dogs over at their house during the day so that we could take off right from Manhattan. The drive wasn't so bad and we treated ourselves to burgers from Five Guys, but we still didn't make it to the fairgrounds until nearly 11pm. When we finally did get there the gate had been pushed shut for the night and we were the last people to arrive. And of course we woke up everyone - humans and Pyrs alike - when we we pulled in and then did noisy things like blowing up the air mattress. Sorry everyone!
We got started early on Saturday morning and Buddy grudgingly took part in the "fun and games" portion of the morning while Todd helped out by setting up tables and making signs. Buddy nimbly avoided all the pins in Pyr-pin Bowling and managed to loose most of his costume before we'd even made one side of the circuit.
The bulk of the activities took place in the afternoon and from noon to nearly 5pm we participated in workshops. The workshops we actually managed to get to were carting, tracking, rally obedience, and livestock guardian testing. All the workshops were terrific and although we had done some of them in the past there was something new to be learned in all of them. We have done the carting workshop three years running and Buddy now has his own carting harness - courtesy of All Things Bright And Biothane (www.allthingsbiothane.com) - so he was a shoe in for that workshop.
[That reminds me that I need to buy appropriately sized wheels for the beginner cart that I built for Buddy before the AKC Responsible Dog Ownership Day last year. Right now it has wheels from a Weber grill which work, but lack a little something...]
Our first year we tried rally obedience and in that workshop there was an advanced course which Buddy was only moderately interested in. This year there was more on the obedience and a smaller portion of rally, but it worked well since most dogs, including ours need assistance with obedience and the rally part is a fun challenge. Both Buddy and Dakota did well in this event and we had fun doing it.
The two new events to Pyrapalooza that we tried this year were tracking and livestock guardian testing. Interestingly Buddy seems to have excellent tracking potential and according to the lady running the workshop he had the most potential of the dogs she tested. She even offered to help us to find a tracking workshop near us. She is actually from the Birkshires and we might be able to do her workshop sometime when we are in Kent. It is exciting that Buddy seems to have such an apptitude. The unofficial theme of this Pyrapalooza was Pyrs as livestock guardians. Mary Gloster of Hallelujah Kennels came to conduct a workshop to evaluate the potential of Pyrs as livestock guardians. The workshop involved live goats borrowed from a nearby farm. Step 1 was to walk the dog along the perimiter of the goat enclosure. If the dog seemed interested but not aggressive they got to go to the next step. Step 2 involves taking the dog into the enclosure to meet the goats. While Buddy is absolutely not allowed near livestock and was the only dog not allowed to go into the enclosure, Dakota turned out to be one of the dogs with the greates LGD aptitude and Mary advised us that we should get her livestock to guard.
The great things about Pyrapalooza is that it is such a great opportunity for learning. For humans to learn and for Pyrs to learn. One of the things that many people don't realize is that to train a dog the human has to do most of the learning. It is nice to see the event growing and to see people and their Pyrs returning each year.
The two new events to Pyrapalooza that we tried this year were tracking and livestock guardian testing. Interestingly Buddy seems to have excellent tracking potential and according to the lady running the workshop he had the most potential of the dogs she tested. She even offered to help us to find a tracking workshop near us. She is actually from the Birkshires and we might be able to do her workshop sometime when we are in Kent. It is exciting that Buddy seems to have such an apptitude. The unofficial theme of this Pyrapalooza was Pyrs as livestock guardians. Mary Gloster of Hallelujah Kennels came to conduct a workshop to evaluate the potential of Pyrs as livestock guardians. The workshop involved live goats borrowed from a nearby farm. Step 1 was to walk the dog along the perimiter of the goat enclosure. If the dog seemed interested but not aggressive they got to go to the next step. Step 2 involves taking the dog into the enclosure to meet the goats. While Buddy is absolutely not allowed near livestock and was the only dog not allowed to go into the enclosure, Dakota turned out to be one of the dogs with the greates LGD aptitude and Mary advised us that we should get her livestock to guard.
The great things about Pyrapalooza is that it is such a great opportunity for learning. For humans to learn and for Pyrs to learn. One of the things that many people don't realize is that to train a dog the human has to do most of the learning. It is nice to see the event growing and to see people and their Pyrs returning each year.
*Special thanks to Mark Vogel for sharing his pictures with us. All the pictures in this post were taken by Mark.
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