Walk for the Animals- Here's how it went down.

Happy Sunday Afternoon! We completed the Walk for the Animals this morning, and here's a few photos (my apologies for the lack of photos, I was so focused on being sure Winnie behaved I didn't reach for the camera as much as I would have hoped!). Never fear though,  Andy was there taking photos with his fancy camera, so he promised me he would get them to me later this week to share with you all. But for now, here's a couple to prove we were there:

Being a goofball.

 I look terrible and Winnie looks
adorable, story of my life.

The day started out pretty gloomy and I was pretty sure it would rain (the forecast said 70% chance) , so there was a lot of debate back and forth about whether Winnie Cooper should even go with us. She usually refuses to walk in inclement weather (we live in Vermont, where the weather is dicey about 95% of the time). Plus, Winnie is not terribly well socialized with other dogs, and taking her to an event with close to 100 dogs is a crap shoot- at best. Eventually I decided to bring her (after all we were walking as Team Winnie Cooper!) and treat this as a training opportunity.

Just in case I brought her baby sling (which is this Outward Hound carrier), so if she decided she didn't want to walk I could scoop her up and carry her in her bag. I also brought her favorite treats and a drool rag (for some reason when she gets anxious she becomes a drool machine).

At the beginning of the event, Winnie was quite barky (okay, she was a little yappy dog). And I had to take out a few treats to reward her when she was quiet and calm and gave her some pretty stern NO's for when she got a little aggro. It took about 30 minutes for her to chill out. By that time I think she was already getting tired from all the unusual stimulation and I decided that she should probably hang out in her doggie sling for the actual walk. Winnie was one of the only pampered pets to be carried on the walk (Vermont is a pretty outdoorsy state, the majority of the dogs were bigger, Labs, Goldens, Huskys, mixes of all of these, etc.). At one point in the walk we went by these little girls that kind of squealed, "Look at the doggie in the bag! Awwww!"

For the last short leg of the Walk (the whole walk is probably less than a mile total) I let her out of the sling and she walked with the rest of the dogs across the finish line. Luckily the rain held off for the walk, although about 10 minutes after we got home the sky opened up for a quick shower.

I graded Winnie with a B for her behavior at the event. She was a C- when we arrived and an A- when we left. I will note that I should have taken her for a walk to get her mellowed out before we arrived for the walk, so I learned a valuable lesson there. However, Winnie was paying attention to her training and did well once she knew what the expectations were.

Team Winnie Cooper raised our goal of $500! I hope to be able to update you on the total amount raised for animals in Chittenden County, VT soon.

So, what did you all do on your Sunday morning?