Last weekend we took a trip out to the Holker Garden Festival in the beautiful gardens at Holker Hall near Kendal. Lilly was acting as Chief Reporter and she had a great time talking to visitors and people running the trade stands with all their interesting goodies. She had a good chat to Lord Cavendish who organises the event and who explained that he was wearing a sunflower to raise money for the local hospice so we had to get one too.
It was a scorching day so she only wore her Press Pack jacket from time to time and took lots of breaks in the shade with her drink. She is very relaxed about everything, even when this monster was huffing and puffing behind her.
We met lots of other dogs there and invited these two into the shade of the press tent for a drink as they looked like they needed a break.
This lovely person came to say hello to Lilly while her Granny was waiting to see the VIP (we've got a photo later). We explained that if puppies have lots of interesting experiences when they are little, like Lilly did, it gives them lots of confidence and they can enjoy meeting new people and exploring new places. There are lots of dogs without good manners so Lilly acts sometimes as a bit of an ambassador at these events. We suggested she had a look at Pegs Pups on YouTube to show how a pup learns from its mum in the first few weeks.
We decided we should get out and about and take a look at some of the stalls...
This man had really interesting smelling armpits but we decided to look at some flowery smelling things instead.....
This lady sells special Hubble Bubble, organic soaps that she makes herself. She told us that many soaps are made from Palm Oil and that the Rain Forest is still being torn down to plant Palm Oil trees that are the natural habitat of the Orang Utang. Her Hubble Bubble soaps only use Rain Forest friendly oils which made us feel happier about it all, so we bought some as a present for Grannie who is in hospital at the moment. All her soaps look really beautiful and smell amazing.
So finally we met the VIP, Monty the sniffer dog who works at Haverigg prison. He is such a good worker that he is used to smell out mobile phones, which are not allowed if you get "banged up", so he told us. Monty has even sniffed out a single SIM card in a large mens toilet block. Lilly was not so keen to think about this in too much detail, she's a bit too much of a pretty girl. But she was very impressed with Monty, they thought they might try and meet up again some time if he gets any time off for good behaviour. Monty was also modelling the latest in kennels and hen houses made by the prisoners, there's quite a waiting list as they are really well made.
Oh yes and there was another VIP there on Saturday, bit of a soft spot for this one, we do admit. Monty Don was judging the Made in Cumbria stalls, ran an auction in aid of the hospice and talked to lots of people who just wanted to know he was feeling better after his stroke.
We had a quick chat with him ourselves as he gave Lil a fuss and told us that he has two dogs at home, he has a Jack Russell and his daughter has a dachshund. We talked about growing your own and local food as well. He's the President of the Soil Association and they are running a special Organic Fortnight in September with the theme "Organic values on a budget" . They are suggesting people organise an organic credit crunching meal for their friends with ideas on their Dinner4Good website . Sounds good to us.
All being well, Rose will have an article in August edition of Smallholder with more on what Monty Don had to say about the importance of growing your own vege, (Lilly lost interest at this point). Hopefully we will be able to meet the two Monty's again at next year at Holker Garden Festival.
Keep in touch with wellbalancedpup on Twitter, or email scout@wellbalancedpup.co.uk. We're always keen to hear from anyone getting out and about with their dogs and meeting new people. We're off to the Fell Gather at Cockermouth on the 14th June which looks fun, we'll have a stall too selling the DVD, so come and meet us if you can.
If you have any suggestions of good events where we can talk to people about puppy socialising and why not to buy your puppy from a puppy farm we'd be interested to find out more.
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