A Fall Favorite

Every September the dog park has a fundraiser called Dog Fest. There are demonstrations of obedience, agility and herding dogs. There are vendors selling collars and toys and homemade dog biscuits. There are pet photographers and representatives from some of the major dog food companies with samples. Several of the local vets set up stands to answer questions and offer nail clipping and micro chip checks. The year Fudge was a puppy we took him and Samba to Dog Fest.

All Creatures was there that year and as we approached we saw that Dr B had something fun planned. He had a bucket of water and he dropped cut up hot dogs in the bucket. They floated and the dogs could bob for hot dogs. Fudge was more interested in getting his feet in the water, but Samba saw those hot dogs, stuck her head in the water and when she came up she had all the hot dogs in her mouth. Today I decided to try the pack at bobbing for hot dogs.


Big problem. The hot dogs didn't float. They sank to the bottom.


We divided the dogs into two groups. Samba, Morgan, Fudge, Sky and Tsar tried first. Tsar didn't want to go near the water, but he kept nudging me to feed him hot dogs and I gave him several. Samba and Fudge went right for the water.


Samba wasn't as interested as I expected her to be, but Fudge wanted those hot dogs.


Of course, being Fudge he couldn't keep his feet out of the water.


It took quite an effort since he got a face full of water, but he ate a lot of hot dogs.


Morgan and Sky weren't going to let Fudge have all the fun.


Sky didn't like getting his face so wet, so he left them to Morgan. She was very good at this.


Here Samba grabs one.


She decided to get in a better position and it worked.


Next we let Noah, Tess, Lola, Bailey and Norma Jean try.


Noah thought this was a great game.


Norma Jean and Bailey were interested.


Norma Jean, that's cheating.


The whole group enjoyed this but there were some surprises.


Noah really wanted that last piece of hot dog.

I had expected Samba and Norma Jean to dominate in this game, but to my surprise they were not as interested as some of the others. Everyone got some hot dogs, but Fudge, Noah and Bailey were the big winners. Bailey was the biggest surprise, because she's never shown a lot of interest in water. She never plays in the wading pool. We're taking her to the lake soon and we'll see if she likes swimming, too.

Now I have to try to find something that floats. I'm going to experiment with apple chunks and carrots. Any other suggestions? And why didn't my hot dogs float anyway?