Dog day of summer
It was all about dogs today. First up was first day of dog school for Rocket. Not much to report. The instructor, a lady named Barbara who has been training dogs for many, many years, told us what we can expect in upcoming classes. The real work will start next week.
Class is at the Kritter Korral in Harbor City. Next session is next Saturday.
There are an alarming number of small dogs in the class, so we'll see how distracted Rocket gets.
From there, I went straight to a Dog Show in Torrance. The event is held by the South Bay Kennel Club and is the only AKC sanctioned event in the South Bay.
There were hundreds of dogs there, but the one I was most interested in meeting was a bluetick coonhound -- the same breed as Rocket. I've never seen one before.
I looked around until I met Blue, who is a little smaller than my dog and has slightly different coloring, but you could tell they were the same breed. And when Blue started barking for no apparent reason, he sounded exactly like my pup.
Blue's owner is a lady named Dee Gunter of Yucca Valley. She's owned blueticks since 1972!
Dee told me that Blue was the very first bluetick to compete in such an event.
You can read about it in Sunday's paper.
And if you want to go to the dog show, it continues Sunday. It's free! They're holding it in the field at North High School in Torrance, 2620 West 182nd St.
Tell 'em Rocket sent you.
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About the Bloggers
Daily Breeze reporter Donna Littlejohn has shared her homes with a succession of wonderful, funny, and occasionally difficult canines -- Muffin, Fritz, Ellie, Mercy, Pilgrim and now Cowboy, an Australian shepherd-border collie, and Tess, a border collie. From strong-willed terriers to weirdly obsessed Australian shepherds, they've invaded her world with boundless energy, wet noses, muddy paws and soggy tennis balls. But they've really brought so much more than that -- like laughter and joy, some unexpected life lessons, and more than a few tears along the way.
E-mail Donna at donna.littlejohn@dailybreeze.com.
Josh Grossberg grew up with the usual array of animals: goldfish, dogs, hamsters, parakeets and turtles. He now owns the loudest dog in the South Bay(Video: Rocket the Dog) and is the least popular person on his block. He spends his free time in dog parks, pet shops and always has an extra plastic bag in his pocket just in case. He also has a cat.
E-mail Josh at josh.grossberg@dailybreeze.com.
I've taken dogs through Barbara's class as well (Pilgrim went twice!). I ran into her today also at the dog show in Torrance, she has had prize-winning Shetland sheepdogs she's shown in the past.
But for this show I think she was helping organize the "rally" competition for Sunday.
Go Rocket! Good luck in school!
Barbara is good. That's where we took Indi when we first got her. She taught us some good stuff...we got Indi on a Friday and fortunately the second class was on the following day. It worked out really well for us.