Steve, Quincy, Chip & I all headed out this morning to participate in the Michigan Basset Rescue’s Basset Hound Waddle in Birmingham, MI. This was our first time attending and I am SO glad that we went. 

We collected pledges for the dogs ahead of time.  Upon arriving, we registered our Basset Hounds for the waddle and each leash was tagged with a pink ribbon.  Quincy was representing Key-Lore Kennels and wore their bandana.    Chip showed his love (or maybe mine!) for the Detroit Tigers and sported a baseball bandana.  Both dogs were very excited, but well behaved all day. Chip was pretty sure the party was for him!  He wanted to meet everyone and thought everyone should pet him and love him!  He had strangers giving him belly rubs, tried taking ice from the hand of a stranger, met a million dogs and befriended a St. Bernard.  Quincy as usual was a bit more reserved, but wasn’t shy or nervous or anxious at all. She did seem hot and was very patiently waiting by lying down almost the whole time.

Steve and I waited for the shuttle for a while, but we ended up just walking down to the staging area from the registration desk. It wasn’t too far, really.  Then, we waited around in the staging area where they had basset games going on.  They had a “Basset race” where they had to jump hurdles. 

Eventually, everyone got ready to waddle!  We were near the middle of the pack.  Both dogs walked nice on the leashes and were well behaved. Both were excited and trying to pull a bit, but they didn’t get tangled or refuse to walk or anything really embarrassing!  We came around the first corner and there was a man videotaping.  Quincy went right up to the camera and put her face in it!  It’s like she knows she’s a star!  Hopefully she’ll be in some video of the event, that would be great!  By the second corner, Chip was really starting to slow down, but he made it to the end. 

They had a few vendors set up and we bought a giggling hydrant (Quincy had one before and loved it) and a very cool Basset Hound welcome mat.  Then, we headed to the car. Chip barely made the last corner to the car. He was so tired, when he tried to step over the curb he face planted in the grass!  They had water stations set up in plastic kiddie pools but Quincy didn’t seem to enjoy drinking from a bowl that other faces had been in!  So, everyone had a drink and then we headed home. It seemed like a long day, but it wasn’t really that much walking. Chip was fast asleep within minutes.

What a nice day!  I’m so glad that we went. This was also good practice for Chip before the Dog Bowl and just with socialization in general. 

I posted a whole photo album of the pictures, check it out!  I’ll be adding captions to the pictures in the album later this week, but I just wanted to get them posted. 

I’ll post later this week with the slideshow after I get titles and captions in.  If you were at the waddle and have a site with pics, please leave a comment with links!