Golden Retriever Meetup

My former Blogistani friend, and now real life friend, Sue, over at Random Ramblings, runs the San Diego Golden Retriever Meetup Group. She sets up informal gatherings throughout the county every couple of weeks. It's a lot of work and requires much organization and follow-up, but she does it for the love of Dog, and specifically, for the love of Golden Dog.

Milo was excited about introducing his new Golden sisters to the group. You would have thought rock stars had just arrived! It was soooo cute! Everyone knew about Laverne & Shirley and they were all waiting for them to get there. These little Golden Girls were the "Queens" of the World for a while. It was nice to see them get so much attention and affection. It warmed my heart.

This meet-up was at the Carmel Mountain Road Dog Park, completely fenced in and incredibly fun. Shirley managed to wriggle her way through a plastic construction fence and into a "no-no" zone, at which point Ed had to once again chase her wiggly butt down. That girl, once she gets it in her head that she's taking off, there's no stopping her. Whew!

Milo and his gals worked the crowd, greeting to and fro, dutifully rationing kisses and wags. Next to this park is a huge outdoor patio dining area with all kinds of restaurants. We didn't stay for that part unfortunately, mostly because we didn't want to stress the girls out by trying to make them sit and stay. (They're not quite there in the training category yet.)

But, Ed also wanted to leave after an upsetting run-in Milo had with a little dog. Truth be told, I was pretty efffing pissed off myself and thank Dog I managed to keep my cool. It wasn't the little dog's fault, it was the owner's fault for bringing a dog to the park that couldn't behave on or off the leash. But, I'm going to stop right there before I get angry again. All I have to say is that my poor little Milo Bear always gets the short end of the stick when it comes to these "run-ins." I'll post more about it later when I'm not seething.

Aaaaanyway...thought I'd share some tidbits from tonight's fun. Here's Milo, once again makin' his Asian eyes for the camera, while papa and his new girls were making googly, lovey-dovey cows eyes at each other. Good grief. ;-) During the meetup we do a round table of introductions. Laverne & Shirley were learning to be good and sitting pretty on a leash. They are excellent Golden pupils. Milo graduated from our school long ago, so he gets to be off leash, which allows him to make his rounds for plenty of gratuitous petting. He reminds me of the kid from Oliver Twist, "Please sir, may I have some more [petting]?" SUCKERS. That's what we animal lovers are. Heh heh.

At the end of little video clip, you'll see a Golden named Norman (who is as big as a horse and just as strong) come running at me. Yah. I got it square in the chest. He slimed all over me. Gotta love it. Who doesn't want a good looking blonde sliming all over her chest? Ha ha ha! I crack me up.

I also got to catch up with Chutney's mom, you'll hear her in the video. She was sitting next to us at the very first meetup we ever attended. Achilles was with us then and I remember sitting in the sun with him on our blankie. It was one of our very last outings together. I also remember Chutney kept coming up over my shoulder and licking my cheek/nibbling on my earring. Good boy Chutney. Way to let a girl know you've the hots for her.

Since we didn't hang around for dinner at the patio, it was time to head home and unwind. Dinner, potty, clean up, and time for all members of the family to assume their positions. Milo & Shirley happened to be chillin' in the family room, so Laverne made her way into Ed's Man Cave. (Don't laugh, that is the room's proper title. I specifically asked for a "man cave" to be designed into the house when we remodeled. That man loves that man cave like you wouldn't believe.)

Laverne & papa bonding time.


Time to get some reading done. Hope ya'll had as great of a hump day as we did, but minus the incident with Milo...grrrrrr!!!