BBQ Party in an Agility Yard

SUMMARY: Party here Sunday without any agility. Well--mostly.

Yes, in her excitement over life and rodents, Tika dug a big hole in my lawn right while I was trying to groom everything for a BBQ on Sunday. I was beginning to wonder whether I'd have a yard left! It didn't seem to be connected to a gopher, and it was in fact in a big bare spot already, and I managed to rake and scrape most of the dirt out of the surrounding lawn and back into the hole, so I doubt that anyone noticed the hole.

The BBQ was nice. Mostly nondog people, although one friend whose young corgi just made her debut (at a trial I didn't attend) came and we chatted briefly about young dogs, and another friend who lost her German Shepherd a couple of years back has been on the edge of getting a new dog, so there were some doggie discussions there. And I have a couple of friends who have had dogs in the past, so most people had dog experienes to share.

A boy named Remington attended (I had to show him my Remington's NATCH plaque). I think he's in the 8-to-10-year-old range, and Boost wasn't sure about him at first, but her love of playing overcame most of her worries, and she did a few tunnels for him and then played fetch off and on all afternoon. But she still wanted to play after everyone went home! Dang border collies.

Then, when he asked questions about how to get the dogs to do the agility equipment, I had to show him a few things and also get The Booster revved up a bit to show him how it looks when done by an expert. Of course, being a kid, he was thereafter perfectly spot on in doing it himself (mostly tunnels, which she loves), although Boost slowed way down and was a little stressed out about it. She was much happier eventually just playing fetch.

He tried to get Tika to play, too, but she is considerably more food-motivated than toy-motivated, and as there was a sea of people milling around with snacks in their hands, she was too busy monitoring for crumb drop to want to go chase moving things. Although by early evening, when most folks were gone and no one was eating any more, she did put on quite the ferocious display of squirrel chasing, verbal abuse thereof, and throwing herself against the fence trying to knock them off.

Having a party here is rough, in two ways. (1) It takes a while to move enough agility equipment out of the way that you can actually see all the nice flowers and lawn and get a feeling of spaciousness. (2) I *like* it like that and don't want to put it back to an agility yard afterwards! It looks so nice and pleasant out there without tunnels and jumps and weaves and tables every 10 feet and across the patio.

Anyway, the BBQ was nice, friends were pleasant, food was good (if I do say so myself)--my homemade banana bread is one of my favorites, and my homegrown/homemade blackberry sorbet was the bees knees! And there is even some left over for snacks this week! Although as usual the deviled eggs and potato chips seemed to go the fastest.

And so busy, I forgot to take any photos, even though I left my camera out!