Vacation is over and I'm finally recovered from it! My heavens! What a fun time we had. We did the "extended camp". That meant that we could check in on Thursday morning rather than Friday evening. We loaded up the car Wednesday morning. Luckily I'd bought a car top carrier or we wouldn't have had room for the dogs in the car because I seriously overpacked. But it was our first time at camp and I didn't know what we might need so I took everything but the kitchen sink. Packing was fun because it was raining. And it rained the entire drive from Kansas City, MO to Rockford, IL. We spent the night in Rockford, IL Wednesday night and then drove on to Camp Dogwood Thursday morning.

We got to Camp around 10ish on Thursday morning, checked in and got Taffy her orange bandana. Dogs who have "issues" wear orange bandanas so people know to ask before they approach. Taffy has issues with big dogs. If she's off leash, she's fine, but if she's on leash and they get too close she tends to get defensive. We were assigned cabin 7 so we drove over and started unpacking. The cabins were big! Our cabin would probably have accommodated 10-12 campers but is was just 2 humans and 3 corgis. They're "rustic" cabins which meant that they had electricity, but no heat. We'd brought a space heater so that wasn't an issue.

After setting up our cabin, we went for a walk down to the agility class and watched some of the action. About that time our friends arrived with their 4 beagles. What a hoot! Unfortunately they found out the hard way that the door to their rustic cabin didn't latch. One of their beagles pushed the door open and took off for the woods! Such good smells in there. We went walking all around in the wood rustling bags of treats and calling her. Basically she finally came when she felt she'd sniffed everything. We caught her and then promptly contacted maintenance to have latches put on the inside and outside of the door!

We spent some time on the beach, got a tour of camp from our friends and just got familiar with the layout. Friday morning we did a little tracking (I need to work on my technique and how much I "help"). We also went down to the beach to play for a while before we were going to watch a dock diving demonstration. Dudley was playing with the other dogs on the beach and then decided to walk out on one of the docks, the one they use for dock diving. Now Dudley does not jump. He's quite the baby about it. Taffy, who is half his size will jump off our bed. But Dudley will whine until we come and get him and put him on the floor. Our bed is kind of high, so I really don't blame him on that one. But Mr. Dudley won't even jump out of a chair! A lot of times he won't even jump IN the chair. He'll put his front feet on the chair and keep hitching one of his back legs until you give in and give him a butt hoist to get his hiney in the chair. So when he trotted out on that dock, I didn't even bother to call him back. He doesn't jump off anything so I don't figure he's going to jump off that dock. One of the gals I'd been talking to on the beach said, "oh, does your dog do dock diving?" My reply was "not to my knowledge." At this point I'm still watching Dudley trot out the length of the dock and I still didn't bother to call him back. He gets to the end of the dock and stops. Then he wiggles his butt, shuffles and positions his feet and jumps! OMG!!! He jumped off the dock!!!

I didn't want him to know that he'd about scared the pee out of me so I'm hooping and praising and telling him "good dog" and trying to be as excited as I can. He's so proud of himself when he gets back to me. But I'm about to swallow my tongue! Come to find out, I've got a total water boy. I knew he liked to swim but I didn't know he liked it that well. So the next day they had a dock diving class which George took Dudley to. Dudley jumped off the dock again!

There were Labs and Goldens that they couldn't get to jump off the dock, but my Dudley did it!

Dudley also participated in some agility. He did very well. We don't have an opportunity to train agility outside so I wanted to attend a couple of agility sessions with Dudley because the course was set up on a football field with no fences. There were other dogs and other classes all around so if I could get him to focus in that environment, I felt like I'd have a chance at an outdoor trial. Dudley did great! I was so happy with him. We also went herding. Dudley's herding instructor is taking a break following a death in the family so it's been a few months since he's seen sheep and I wanted to see what he'd do. Shannon said he's a natural driver. Good boy!

We also took our foster dog, Teddy, with us to Camp. Teddy is a very sweet little guy. He's just a year old and a total bundle of energy. And Teddy needs a job. We'd only had him for about 3 weeks and were still learning about him so I wasn't sure what sort of activities he'd like. He loved playing on the beach but was totally opposed to getting in the lake. No swimming for him. I didn't want to take him herding because he's a pretty fearful little guy and I was afraid that'd be a bit much for him at this point. So instead George took Teddy to "small dog beach party". He LOVED that. The picture of Teddy running with his tongue hanging out is from that session. He had a blast. I also took Teddy to The Actors Studio. They make up a story that will showcase the talents of the different dogs who participate. Teddy didn't really have any tricks so I taught him some while we were in class. He's a very smart little guy! The play was done Sunday night for all the campers and was a huge hit. All the dogs were adorable. But turns out that we did find an activity that Teddy is passionate about. Lure coursing! OMG! He's a nut for it! And is he ever fast! I had to help him because he didn't want to step over the string where they crossed. He was also scared of the first pulley he encountered. But I ran with him and encouraged him and once he got over those two hurdles, he was off to the races! And when he was done he was SO happy! He really liked lure coursing. It's a shame they don't let any breed that's interested participate in trials. They're restricted to sight hounds only.

Taffy didn't do as much as the boys did. Mostly she stayed with Daddy and adored him. But we were all tired and had tons of fun. If you have the chance to go to Camp Dogwood, I highly recommend it!