Gromit, Holly the wiener dog, and Debbie and I made the long drive up to N. Phoenix today for the fund raiser picnic for Arizona Cactus Corgi Rescue. The count on the number of Corgwyn in attendance varies with some people, those probably more alert than me, counting over thirty Corgis including some Cardies.

There were lots of lovely dogs, old dogs, young dogs, dogs with tales, dogs without, and some in between. All our Welsh buddies got along great and with minimal flare ups of Corgi temper. It was an amazingly well behaved group. There was also lots of great food in the pot luck dinner for the humans. After I sat down with my plate I noticed that I became much more popular with the the four footed crowd.

Gromit got to try more agility equipment and I garnered a few ideas on how to build the next items for our backyard agility course. We got to make some new friends, meet some old ones, and spend about four hours talking all things Corgi. I wish I could have met, photographed, and petted every Corgi there but I'm afraid I missed several.

I don't know the organizers of the event but I'll assume with such a good turn out and a great raffle that a reasonable amount of money was raised to help save those Corgis who have not yet arrived in their best home. I regret not getting a chance to say hello and give them a proper thank you for their efforts.

One of the real highlights of the day was bumping into Joe and Liz Arnold. Besides being nice people they own Mistletoe, the sister to my late, great pals Watson and Tinsel. Missy has had an excellent career these last ten years as a hearing assistance dog and she is also Gromit's, Great Aunt. I'd not seen Missy in ten years and she's certainly older but no less wonderful as she closes in on her 12th birthday.

Gromit made lots of new friends. His longer "glamor coat" was a hit with a number of people. Good thing he's down with being hugged because he got squeezed a lot. Seeing Corgis with normal length coats reminded Debbie and I of just how long Gromit's coat is. Not all the way to fluffy but it will definitely put our vacuum to the test.

The only downside of the day for me was that my good camera had to be sent back to Nikon for a fix up this past week and I was relegated to using my five year old Nikon point-n-shoot camera. It was a painful experience, like sitting down to a wonderful dinner with nothing but a dull knife as your only eating utensil.

The rest of the pictures from the picnic are on Flikr here. If you see yourself or your dog and would like your name or your pal's name under the picture let me know and I'll update the Flikr page. Sadly, I can't even begin to remember all the names of the dogs and humans that I met today although the most unique doggie name goes to a sweet little Corgi named "Broccoli."