1st Annual BRT Potluck

Ages ago, Stuart and I had the idea of trying to organize some kind of get together for everyone in the area who has a BRT. There were two motivators to do it: they seem to have lots in the States and Europe that we can't get to and we seemed to be the only common hub amongst folks, so why not let them meet each other. I have no interest in showing or a formal organization, but a local support and appreciation group would/could be fun.

So, in the spring, I got off my butt and tried to organize something. I think that having food makes everything better - sharing food is kind of a bonding thing and it provides something other than the dogs to talk about. I discovered that the city doesn't have any picnic areas that are close to off-leash areas, so I turned to my good friends Kay and David. Who, if you've read earlier posts, you will remember bought an acreage last year. A fully fenced acreage with a big bbq. They graciously agreed to let me invite all these people and their giant dogs to hang out.

Using Evite turned out to be a bit vexing, yet again.  The premise is good, but it seems to scare some people and at least half of them got diverted by spam filters. We invited about 10-12 dogs, with their families and ended up with 5. Some had to back out at the last moment, some never responded at all and some were just busy that weekend. In the end, we were there with Ursa; Lucy and Oskar came with Grecia; Natalie and Joe came with Jupiter; Shelley and her handler Michelle brought Jewel; and Chad came with Epsilon.

It was a hot, sunny day, so there was less playing than we'd maybe anticipated.  Stuart made a couple of efforts to get a game started, but the humans mostly hung in the shade and the dogs mostly hung out with their humans.  :)  It turned out that Ursa was definitely the biggest of the dogs that came. By a reasonably significant margin (or as my dad put it, "It looked like there was Ursa and a bunch of mini-BRTs.") She was the tallest, longest and heaviest of the lot. Which makes me think that we should ask Alexandra to breed Gosha and Toma again - I don't want a mis-matched set!  LOL

At any rate, it wasn't the rocking-est party I'd ever attended, but I think it was fairly successful. I think we might try to organize a simpler off-leash park meet-up in the fall and see if we can get more of the folks who couldn't attend this time.