Wags for Wishes

A friend of ours is the chairman for a huge doggy event in Phoenix called Wags for Wishes. It is a fundraiser to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. It only goes for a weekend yet they raise over $25,000 each year.

There are many events open to the public to do with their dogs. In addition to agility, there is a Disk Dog competition and clinic, herding instinct tests (using both sheep and ducks), a barn hunt (earthdog), lure coursing, Dock Diving, flyball, obedience, rally, Canine Good Citizenship testing, vendors, a huge raffle, numerous clinics on dog sports, pet-related clinics, photography, and more.

We took Wazzu and Boogie to partake in the days activities. To participate in each activity you must purchase tickets. Of course, Boogie wanted to participate in everything! Wazzu thought it was way too hot to do anything....until....she spotted the sheep! All of a sudden it wasn't hot out at all.

So, of course, we had to let her do her job. Here she is making sure the sheep stay together and go where they should.



Then she had to get them to change direction...success.




She was doing so well the guy let her do some herding without him around. Wazzu thought that was the highlight of her day! There is nothing she loves more than getting them back together when they split up!



Wazzu didn't want to leave even though her tongue was down to her knees after 25 minutes of herding in 98 degree weather. She was one happy girl.

While Boogie participated in many events, the funniest one had to be lure coursing. Boogie is good at a lot of things but lure coursing isn't his strong suit.

He started out great, chasing the lure at full speed.



But as he went around the corner, the reel nicked him and that made him mad. So he did what he usually does when he gets mad, he started barking back at it and telling it off.

No matter how many times they brought the lure around, he just stood there barking and barking at the reel.



We had purchased a lot of tickets thinking he would want to do that over and over. We waited about an hour an let him try again but he just ran straight to the reel and started barking. At that point we gave away the rest of our tickets.

We all had a great time and hope someday we'll be able to participate again.

Debbie