WAGS Picnic

Here's my promised report on the WAGS picnic we went to last weekend. I don't know if this is an annual thing or not, since we only started fostering last Sept., but I was excited as soon as we got the invitation in the mail a few months ago. The picnic was planned by the founder, Wendy, as a great big get-together for the foster families, the families where dogs have been placed, and the trainers/breeders, and of course all the dogs. I think there were maybe 50 people including the kids, and about 12 dogs in all, but it was hard to keep count! When we got there, there was only one other family there, besides Wendy (it was at her house), so at first it was easy to tell the dogs apart. Wendy has Moose, who she uses as a demonstration dog, and the one family brought Bella, another golden retriever.

One by one, more families arrived, and each time they came through the gate, all the dogs would rush up to the gate to greet the new one. I tried really hard to keep them straight, but after the 6th dog, I completely gave up. At one point I was worried I wouldn't be able to tell which one was Archie!

Here's a picture of a whole butt-sniffing chain! Don't ask,
I couldn't tell you who's who!











The dogs were given the "day off", no jackets required, and were allowed to roam the (fenced in) yard and visit the whole time. You may be wondering, didn't it get a little dangerous to walk around??? Amazingly, I only heard of one incident of stepping in poop - of course, it was Danny, lol!



It was really hard to get good pics of the dogs, since they were constantly in motion, and mostly I got a lot of doggie butts.


Wendy had a great set-up in her yard, with tables set out for eating, a really cool outdoor bar, and an open area with a corn hole game set up in the far rear. The right side of the yard was mostly full of trees and shrubs, so that was pretty much the dogs' domain for the day. Here's a great shot of the back of the yard:





One of the great things about the picnic was getting to see all the dogs and their kids.




We hadn't seen Rudy since June, and since he wasn't placed from our house we really didn't know much about his family, so meeting them and seeing Rudy again was especially fun. Here is a fantastic shot of Rudy and Joe:

Although Rudy still needs to wear his haltie (to prevent too much pulling on the leash) he has otherwise settled down well at his home, and he and Joe seem to really love each other. I have to say, I am soooooo proud of Rudy, and so happy that he has been placed well. When we first got him at 10 mos old, we were worried that he'd never be calm enough to be in service. He'll always be "Freaky Dog" to me! Of course, now we're thinking the same thing about Archie; I call him "Nerd".


Here is a picture of Sarah and Murphy, with D and K. The next day, K and I spent a few hours at Sarah's, and Archie and Murphy got to play again. Wow, did he love that! Archie doesn't have any other dogs to play with here, so he just had a ball. Sarah is indeed going to school with D (she's one yr older, tho), and he does see them in the halls. He says the same thing everyone else does, "yeah, but you can't pet him!"







At one point at the end of the day, we tried to get a group picture of all the dogs. Believe it or not, it was harder than we thought! A whole afternoon of freedom apparently went to their heads, and this was the best we could do:


(No, Danny wasn't in charge, even though he looks like he's got some sort of control over them!) A few of the dogs had already left by then, but there's 11 there, 8 of them goldens! Can you tell which is Archie? Nah, me neither. Rudy's back by D, and Murphy's right there in the front; the other black lab is Budha. Not that I can tell which is which, but the other dogs' names are Moose, Bella, AJ, Sampson, Max, Jake, and...ummmm...ok, I only forgot one of them - that's pretty good, right? lol








Here is one of my favorite shots:

This is Archie (on the right) with his full brother, Jake. They are almost completely identical, except Jake is a little lighter in color. It was soooo neat to watch them when Jake arrived; they instantly got together and ran around, like they new they were brothers. The interesting thing is, Archie is going to be placed with a family about 1 hr away, while Jake - who is fostering at a home out near Archie's future family - will be placed in the town next to ours! So in about a month the two will be trading foster families, and we can each help with the transitioning. Otherwise, Lisa, the trainer who works with us, would have to keep carting both dogs an hr each way every time they went to visit. Makes more sense to switch 'em!

All in all the picnic was a huge success. I think all the kids (foster, owners, siblings) had a really good time and the dogs sure loved every minute of it! Hard to believe, but no one went home with the wrong dog! As for Archie, he slept the whole way home, lol!