Archives for June 2009

I’m exhausted! My husband and I and our Labrador Retriever Midnight went to Woofstock today and after all that walking around in the hot sun I’m tired!

Woofstock is the largest dog festival in North America and it’s going on this weekend here in Toronto.

Instead of driving downtown we decided to take the subway. It was Midnight’s first time on the Subway so it was an adventure for her. She did well, but didn’t like all the long, steep sets of stairs that we had to go up and down in the subway stations. Why … well we don’t let her go upstairs with us in our house or go into the basement, so she isn’t used to climbing big sets of stairs. Otherwise she did really well on the train.

It had been an overcast slightly cool day when we set out for the subway, but by the time we got downtown the sun had decided to come out so it was quite warm walking in the crowds at Woofstock.

Midnight had a ball meeting all kinds of other dogs. Luckily every dog we met was fairly friendly. The only dogs that we saw not getting along were two un-neutered males that got too close to each other.

We came home with a ton of treats for Midnight. Two big Mammoth bones, a beef knee, 6 pigs ears, liver treats and two types of special baked dog treats.

We also bought two more leashes – the same kind that we bought last year at the show. It’s a leash that has rivet holes in several places and hooks at each end so that you can wear the leash around your waist as you walk your dog, or attach one end of the leash easily to a pole when you need to leave your dog outside a store for a moment or adjust the length of the leash in anyway that suites you. Obviously we loved the leash we bought last year so much that we wanted to make sure that we’d always have one!

We also got Midnight a new collar. It’s vinyl or rubber. It will be great to use when we take her to the lake for a swim as it won’t soak up water, stretch or get smelly like her current collar does whenever it gets wet.

Just before we left Woofstock we took Midnight to this area that had small pools that the dogs could wade in. She was hot (we’d been giving her water all afternoon and there were several water bowls near most of the booths) and needed a good soak. She got right into the small pool and the lady that was there managing the pools sprayed her with a hose. I took some pictures but I’m too tired to transfer them to the computer, crop them and upload them just now … so pictures of our day at Woofstock will follow in another post.

Midnight was wet when we got on the subway since her soak in the pool happened only minutes before we left the event. She’d shaken herself off a few times, but just as I feared she did a good shake while we were on the subway and got water droplets all over a lady who was reading some kind of diet pill review pamphlet. Oops! Luckily she didn’t mind!

Our dog is sleepy this evening, just as I expected. We wore her out!

Tomorrow if I feel up to it (remember I’m tired out too!) we might go down to the waterfront and see some of the final LuminaTO events. There’s going to be performances by Cirque de Soleil members in two areas of the Waterfront / Harbourfront area. I definitely want to see that! Being an outdoor event I’m pretty sure that we can take our dog with us, so she’s going to get some more outdoor activity tomorrow – more than likely!

Does your city have a lot of outdoor activities and events throughout the summer? Ours does! That’s one of the reasons I love living in Toronto. There’s always something interesting to do.