FLAOA

Mark your calendars, folks!  Sunday, September 13th, 2009, will be FLAOA's 2nd Annual RDO Day, sponsored in part by the American Kennel Club (AKC).  This year's event will be very similar to last year's.  There will be LOTS of fun stuff for children and the young at heart.  Stop back again as we get closer to the date for further information.  In the meantime, check out the info below from last year's celebration to see some of the fun we have planned for you. 

The Set-Up.  Upon arrival, visitors could browse through a plethora of information about owning dogs, from health and nutrition, to grooming and training, not to mention the mountain of stuff for kids.  AKC and Invisible Fence supplied many things for the event and made available, via download on the internet, even more.  Children went home with numerous coloring books, puzzles, and other activity sheets covering all aspects of dog ownership that we downloaded and had copied at our local copy center.  Guiding Eyes dogs and handlers were there to answer questions and socialize their puppies; various puppies took turns bringing in money for a local shelter by serving as the "kissing puppy" when they weren't spending time in the "petting pen".  Numerous kids went home with painted faces, trailing balloons tied to themselves or their attire.  One on-duty police officer obviously couldn't bring the kids but stopped by and collected a stack of stuff to take home to them.  Meanwhile, rally demonstrations and agility demonstrations were being given in the next two rings.  The heat and humidity of the day, unfortunately, found us without a volunteer to don our big fuzzy dog costume, which found itself sitting forlornly by the door prize table for the afternoon.  Also, in the twelfth hour the vet students' rabies clinic fell through, but there's always next year, and we'll know the pitfalls to avoid, as well as hope for cooler weather with less humidity to be able to offer these two things again!

All set up and waiting for people to arrive...

The Puppy Petting Pen.  Sometimes, there's no need for words; the pictures tell it all...

Face Painting.  We were fortunate enough to have two "artists" willing to share their talents on faces.  Sadly, only children were brave enough to participate in this event.  Most of them wanted something simple, but a few wanted the "whole face".  One little tough guy preferred to have a basketball on his arm "like a tatoo" while others opted for colors to match their outfits.

Door Prizes and Raffles.  FLAOA offered two baskets full of dog items -- one geared for large dogs and one for small dogs -- as door prizes, which also included either a free agility class or a free obedience class.  Two additional classes (one agility and one obedience) were also offered as door prizes.  We were fortunate to have Ithaca Agway supply a dog crate, and Tractor Supply donate a dog bed as raffle items for our event, and, again, we offered a couple of coupons for classes.  The right to name which local dog charity was to receive the money raised from raffle ticket sales, as well as "puppy kisses", was also raffled; the winner named a local golden retriever rescue organization as the recipient.  Those guests who arrived with a donation for a local dog shelter or rescue (in the form of dog food, treats, toys, paper towels, bleach, etc.) received free raffle tickets, and the naming of the recipient was also raffled.  Tompkins County SPCA was named as the recipient of these donations.

Puppy Kisses.  As we all know, puppies don't stay puppies for very long, so sometimes it's hard for folks to get a supply of puppy kisses.  Taking advantage of that market, we had a number of puppies more than willing to participate in this supply-and-demand.  Some folks were running tabs in this event.

 Rally, Agility and Other Fun Stuff. 

CGC.  We only had one taker brave enough to do a CGC test (Congratulations, Karla and Lily!) but we had several others sign up to take our next CGC class.  One by one, we'll get them all!

 A picture is worth a thousand words...

All in all, a fun day for everyone!