Seeing into darkness is clarity . . .
This is called practicing eternity . . .

--Lao-Tzu

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Zombie Detection Training

Over Halloween weekend, I loaded 7 dogs in the car, and we drove to Michigan to learn how to hunt for zombies.  It says a lot about me that I think this is a fun weekend.  Not the zombie part so much, because I’ve never even seen a zombie movie.  I live alone in the country, so I don’t really like scary movies.  I saw a couple of them, classics like The Exorcist and Halloween in my younger days, and pretty much decided I never wanted to see any more, ever.  So I missed the whole zombie movie-thing.  But a car loaded with dogs, and Michigan, and Halloween weekend filled with crisp, cold air and sunshine . . .  that’s my thing. 
The Event was at Dog Scout Camp, and coordinated expertly by Troop 217.  There were 33 people who participated, which is quite a nice turnout.  We spent the weekend taking our dogs through various competitions to help in their training for Zombie Detection, and then the final event was the collection of Zombie parts in the woods (similar to a scavenger hunt) and the reassembling of each team’s zombie back at the lodge.  Lottie, of course, had a blast.  She loves everything, so zombie-hunting was pretty awesome for her.  I have to admit that Tango the Wonder Dog was my main zombie hunter, because I wanted to win, and Tango can do everything extremely well.  But then Chris and I (team “Army of Darkness”) found out, after we were in first place by Saturday afternoon, that the winner had to plan next year’s event, so we decided Lottie should be more involved!  We were able to successfully lose our first place standing with Lottie’s help ;-)
Tango the Wonder Dog flying through the agility course


Lottie navigating the agility course
 
All in all, it was a super cool weekend, and we will definitely plan to come back to kick some more zombie butt next year!!



Dazzle and Tango, the brains and brawn behind Team "Army of Darkness", pose with their completed zombie.


More Lottie agility.  Go, girl, go!!

Punch, Tango and Pascha on the lookout for zombies.
Lottie meeting the new burro
Agility course