HIGHLAND FLING

Peni soldiered on to "Scotland the Brave" at the Victoria Highland Games on Sunday. Island Dog Sports was originally supposed to have had a much greater representation at the day's festivities, but due to a number of things, our participation was not confirmed until much too late for us to do the full-meal-deal. In fact, it came down to just Peni and Hana. I brought along Zack -- I thought maybe we could do a demonstration of how you teach a dog to do freestyle (mostly because we don't have anything choreographed as yet). However, we didn't even get into the venue before the skirl of the bagpipes totally spooked him. So back to the car he went!

I emceed an introduction to the moves by Peni and Hana, and then scooted off the stage for them to do their fling-thing on the grass in front of the stage. The venue was totally unsuitable (except for its saving grace of being in out of the rain). Too small an area for Peni and Hana to do their routine properly. The crowd was appreciative of their dance but I'm sure it was hard for most of them to see what was going on.

Despite the limited nature of our participation, we did get an excellent opportunity to scout out the site, and are now well prepared to tell the organizers what we really need to do both agility and our freestyle program next year. We've already been promised the big clear area in front of the tent where we were today — and that will be much, much better. We've made it clear to one of the games reps that we will be in contact with them several times over the coming year to be sure that all the arrangements are confirmed well in advance.

Many thanks to Peni for representing the club at this event!