Camp K9..

Blog entry I wrote a few days ago..

Hello from Barrington Tops!! I’m here with Mum and Frankie the dog, and Camp K9 has just ended. What a weekend!! We arrived on Thursday, stopping in Wyong on the way. All up the trip from Sydney took about 4 hours, and it was a fairly easy drive. It started raining shortly after we checked into our cabin but we were lucky, that night was the only rain we had all weekend! It was pouring during the introduction dinner and speeches, Frankie was totally freaking out at the noise of the rain on the tin roof of the hall, plus all the commotion of people, dogs, and the sounds of the microphone. At one point he was shaking so much one of the dog trainers suggested I should take him back to the cabin, so I did. Tip- if you ever come here, bring a torch, and a lot of warm clothing. It’s very cold and dark in the mountains at night!!! (Worse when you’re carrying a shaking dog through the rain with no umbrella and it’s pitch black!) Friday morning we woke up and Frankie was in his happy pants mood, thank God! All of the 40 dogs and 70 people we met were lovely, and he was soon walking around with a wagging tail and smiley face. We attended seminars on Animal Photography, Dog Body Language, and Canine First Aid and Acupuncture. All very informative. By the way, the whole resort is 100% dog friendly- right down to the café, the shop, the bar and the candlelit dinners in the evening. We also did agility- Frankie loved it! He was a little bit concerned by the tunnel but eventually went through, though stopping to lick the floor of the tunnel on the way! He jumped over hurdles but would not jump through hoops (yet!) Saturday morning we went horse riding and left Frankie in the office with the very helpful and lovely staff of Riverwood Downs Mountain Valley Resort. They tell me he actually behaved very well!! My horse’s name was Dorothy and she was lovely too, though my knees and butt have never known such pain as they did after 90 minutes of trail riding up and down hills and across rivers. It was a beautiful experience though. We attended a seminar on multi-dog households (yeah, I’m still thinking about that..) and Frankie did Rally O, which is basically a cross between obedience and agility. He actually did quite well at this, except that I’ve always had him walk on my right and when I needed him to be on my left he kept going behind me! The more popular alternative to this was Treibball, but I picked Rally O for Frankie since he personally has never had any interest in balls! Sunday morning we had a group photo, final words, and another run through of either agility or Rally O. There was a session on tricks, the dogs were given gift bags and certificates when we finished, and then most people packed up and headed home. We decided to stay another night and head back on Monday morning since neither of us have to work Monday and the whole weekend has been so busy, we wouldn’t have even had time to pack the car! We went canoeing this afternoon, which was ridiculous since neither Mum nor I can row to save ourselves. We took Frankie with us and he just layed down on the middle seat, totally unphased by the whole boat thing. Towards the end he decided he wanted to sit in my lap which made it impossible to row, but we were back near the river bank by then anyway. That’s about it.. tonight we pack up and have a dog friendly dinner in the restaurant before we head home in the morning!