Spring Fling

Emmy visiting Bob at the dunking booth

We had a chance to enjoy the wonderful weather today and take Emmy to Hope's "Spring Fling" - basically a large carnival of sorts in the commons of campus. There was an inflatable obstacle course, jousting, a mechanical bull, concerts, BBQ's, and LOTS of college students! We started out by visiting Bill's brother, Bob, who was being targeted by his peers at the dunk tank. When Bill took his chance at dunking his little brother (yes that's correct...the older more responsible one tried...and succeeded in dunking his little brother) Emmy got really excited and wanted to play fetch with the oversized balls they had. The splashing and noise got her all in a dither and it took some cheese stick treats to get her to focus again. During a lull in the crowd, Emmy was able to go and visit Bob while he sat in the tank. Bob even spashed a little of the water on her, which was great being it was an 80 degree afternoon!

After that, we wandered over to "The Push" which is basically a shopping cart derby around the common area of campus. A bunch of students get involved and dress all crazy, make lots of noise, and push shopping carts around, while hundreds of other students line the sidewalks to cheer them on. Emmy and Amy met up with Aspen and Griffin (two other PAWS dogs being raised by Jim and Trudi VanderPloeg) at the starting line and watched The Push start. Emmy did very well on staying controlled and maintaining eye contact, especially when students started running past us to get to the next best "viewing spot".

We obviously received lots of attention at Spring Fling too because it's not every day that students see a dog...especially one as cute as Emmy (well ok, so Griffin being only a 9 week old black lab kinda takes the cake on cuteness...but Emmy is still pretty darn cute)! After walking back home, Emmy was pretty beat. In fact, she fell asleep in the kitchen right next to her water bowl (it probably would have taken too much energy to walk across the room to lay on her mat).

It was a great day! We're definitely excited for the nice weather and a chance to go out and about the town more.