Walk for Fidelco

Yara and I had so much fun this past weekend! [Note: Very lengthy and image-intensive post to follow. Big thanks to Patty, Tom, Raechel, and James for sharing all their photos!]

Friday night we headed off via the train to Hartford, CT. It was a pretty relaxing ride albeit the fact that the roughly three hour trip took us more than eight because we had to travel to NYC and transfer to another train. At Penn Station we had a bit of an issue with a bunch of unhelpful Red Caps, but we did get to meet some other Fidelco graduates during the second half of our train trip. At the Hartford station we were greeted by the familiar faces of Des and Tommy, which was a welcome treat, and then whisked off to the East Hartford Sheraton where the Graduate Dinner would later take place.

Before all that, though, I got to chat with Megan! She introduced me to a bunch of other Fidelco instructors and staff members, including Liz who was the trainer that worked with Yara. It really was fascinating getting to talk with everyone and learn about the dogs and people they’ve worked with over the years that I’ve come to know. I was glad that there ended up being so many people from Fidelco there, as I wasn’t staying at the hotel and thought I might potentially be stuck in the lobby quite bored.

Of course, one of the best parts of the evening was getting to meet Patty and Tom, Yara’s fosters! Yara noticed them almost the second they walked in the door and started getting very silly and excited. We chatted for a bit and then headed into the dining hall where dinner would be served. And not too long after that, Raechel and James arrived . . . and even more talking occurred! The dinner itself was pretty fun. The food was pretty good and I got this very pretty diploma during the small graduation ceremony.

After the ceremony, there was a raffle in which our table won several times over. I ended up with two prizes! Not to long after the raffle finished Patty and Tom headed out and then James, Raechel and I gathered all of my things and set off for their house. Once we arrived, Yara and I got to meet all of their dogs, including their foster puppies Spock and Giselle. We let the puppies and Yara play in the kitchen for a bit, while we continued talking and talking and talking, but for the most part Yara was content to just sniff around and chew on the various bones on the floor. I think Spock was a bit too much for my girl, honestly, but she did play with Giselle a bit.

The next morning, Yara was ready to go at the crack of dawn, but no one else was. I finally gave in at 7:30 and let her drag me downstairs to relieve herself, where we were met by copious amounts of Dasha barking. Silly old dog! Anyway, after all the dogs and people were fed, we piled Scarlet, Spock, Otis, Yara, James, Raechel, and myself into the car and headed off to Manchester Community College. We met up with Patty and Tom almost immediately — and Megan found us as we were exploring.

We all wandered around a bit, checking out the various tents and doing the normal mingle thing and after I’d gotten my registration materials we decided to check out the foster demonstration. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones with this idea and this ended up being the highlight of that few moments of my life.

Since we couldn’t really see the demonstration through the throng of people, we all decided to walk the course instead. Patty and Tom, having arrived awhile before us, had already gone through the trail, but were happy enough to lead us through.

It was a really pleasant walk across the campus grounds; the sun was out but most of the trail was in the shade and the entire length was paved. All the dogs were really good, too. And, not surprisingly, the “cute pug” was a very big hit amongst the people we passed. I joked to James that the back of his head might become the next big Internet meme because so many people were taking Otis’ picture! (You might notice in the above photos that Otis has turned around in his carrying pack and is peering over James’ shoulder.) By the time we’d finished our walk, the tents were already being packed up and people were starting to leave. We hung around a bit, chatting with Megan and others and trying to decide what all of us would do next given we had so many dogs with us, and finally decided to go out to lunch and visit Fidelco. So we all piled back into our cars . . . and the dogs all fell asleep.

In the end, we went to Fidelco first where I got a personalized tour from the rest of the group. (And it just dawned on me that we didn’t take any pictures!) Afterwards, we left Stanley, Spock, Scarlet and Otis at Fidelco. It was actually kind of funny because as we’re crating all the dogs they are all whining and making a fuss at being left. And when we tried to walk away, Yara didn’t want to leave and she started crying, too. I’m not sure if she just didn’t want to leave all her new friends behind or if perhaps she wanted to join them and be crated as well. It was really very cute. Anyway, we went down the street to lunch at Three Brothers and who do we run into but Robbie Kaman, the president and co-founder of Fidelco! She ended up joining us for lunch and we all talked at great length. (Noticing a theme for the weekend yet?)

When we were all full and happy, we headed back to Fidelco to gather up the dogs. But first we let Spock, Stanley, and Yara have some playtime in one of the pens. Or at least the boys played, Yara mostly walked around and sniffed stuff:

Once the dogs were all good and tired, we parted ways and all piled back into our cars. Raechel, James and I had a very pleasant evening making dinner, playing on the Wii, and watching the puppies and Yara play.

Sunday morning I happily was not awoken at the crack of dawn by a certain GSD. In fact, I was very amused to discover her sound asleep underneath my bed! I was also quite surprised that Dasha didn’t bark at us when we wandered downstairs; instead we woke up Spock and he was happy enough to get the rest of the house up in just as rude of a manner. After breakfast, Raechel, James and I went next door to let Spock and Giselle play with Toby, the neighbor’s lab-mix puppy. I’d thought Spock and Stanley were pretty crazy the day before, but that playtime didn’t hold a candle to the crazy that is Toby and Spock. Poor Giselle only wanted to lay in the shade and watch them, but they kept running over to her and playing right on top of her! With playtime as hard as that, it didn’t take the boys long before they were nice and tired. And then we gathered all the dogs together to take a group shot. It was pretty funny, honestly, trying to get six dogs to all sit and behave long enough for a good shot. Otis got a bit cranky when the puppies kept sniffing at him and poor Dasha looked like we’d tortured her something fierce.

Shortly thereafter, we took Spock with us to lunch at a nearby restaurant. The food was very good and we all chatted some more while the dogs contentedly lay at our feet.

From there we went back to Raechel’s to feed and relieve all the dogs and then we gathered all of my stuff and headed to the train station . . . where we discovered the train was delayed nearly an hour! Unfortunately, it had started to rain so we weren’t able to do much other than hang around the station and talk. (Seriously, it’s amazing we hadn’t run out of things to say by then!)

All too soon, though, the announcement came that my train was arriving and our very chatty and fun weekend drew to a close. Yara and I bid farewell to Raechel and James and again traveled the long ride via NYC back home. I’m happy to say that we didn’t have any problems during the transfer, which was an absolute blessing given how short our layover was since the Hartford train had been so late and other than being a bit hoarse and very exhausted, I was no worse for the wear. I’m definitely looking forward to next year’s Walk!