the lilydale show and dog training demonstration

Penny and I had an energetic but hot day at the Lilydale Show today. K9 Kompany, the dog-rescue and training company where we train each Tuesday, was having a demonstration of a typical lesson as part of the Lilydale agricultural show this weekend. We went along as part of the demo class.

It was a hot, hot day and we had to wait our turn at the little pool while other dogs cooled down.









Before our session, Cindy, our regular teacher, suggested Penny go and check out the livestock around the area, so she wouldn't be tempted to investigate the interesting smells during the session. In fact, she wasn't interested at all and concentrated well in the demo.



We participated in two sessions and then had a walk around the show to check out what was interesting. Penny found:
two pieces of hot dog
one hot dog bun
one piece of tomato
one onion slice (wasn't allowed to scoff it!)
eight chips
Some lovely smells to roll in.

We then went back to watch the teachers working with their own dogs. They showed doggy dancing, agility and games. It was fun to see their dogs racing to pick up soft toys and put them in a bucket.










We also saw their dogs performing tricks.




Penny was quite upset with me when I booked her in at the mobile dog wash to get rid of the nice smells she'd collected during the day. I thought it would cool her down, but as it turned out I needn't have worried, as the rain pelted down for five minutes and she would have been wet anyway.



















Finally we went to the arena to watch the Grand Parade, which unfortunately wasn't very 'grand' because it was missing the horses. I haven't visited this Show before but apparently the horses are a big feature of the Grand Parade. The horse events had been cancelled because of the widespread outbreak of equine influenza that has caused so much trouble lately in Australia.

However, having read Wayfarer Scientista's blog and realised that dog sledding is such a popular sport in her neck of the woods I loved seeing the Aussie version of sledding as it went past in the big parade.