Boy Scouts and Ducks

We were contacted a few weeks ago by the local boy scouts to see if we
would do a herding demo for their summer camp - they were studying Australia. We pointed out that Australian shepherds are
an American dog but she didn't care so we said sure!

After working almost 30 hours in 2.5 days i was pretty tired but on
tuesday we packed up some ducks and Lin and Stan and we headed off to
the camp. It was 97 in the shade but we were blessed to have a faint
wind stirring. (whew)

I had no idea til we got there that it was the summer camp for so many
dens. There were 150+ boys there mostly in the 6-12 range plus adults
- over 200 people.

I was a tad nervous because there was no fence and we were in a small-
ish area surrounded by a lot of woods, so if a duck got away, it was
gone, and Stan doesn't really like ducks much. After explaining to the
camp director that the kids needed to be quiet during the demo and not
move about when the dogs were working, we got them set up and spent
about an hour with the kids. We talked about the dogs, ducks did a
demo, and a Q&A. The best question from a kid... Is an australian
shepherd related to a German shepherd. :)

Ok to be fair Lin did a demo. Stan saw the kids and went over to the
crowd of boys and made himself at home pretty much the whole time. He
did no herding. He was hot - and he hates ducks - he blatantly said
no, he was happy amongst the boys. he had 150 boys eager to rub and
scritch him. That's 300 hands or... (Mumbles naught carry tha naught) about 1500 fingers (oh yeah baby!) all
his personal massage!!! Yeah. He's not stupid.

At the end A. took the dogs and I took a duck and we split up so
the kids could come say hi in small groups. I didn't have an eye on
Stan much at all but I figured that when he left me immediately to go
wander among the boys and clean all their ears (his thing) he was
happy with all the kids, so he was around somewhere. I did look over
once and saw him with about 20 kids around him and he was rolled over
getting belly rubs and looked deliriously happy, and another time he
had a boy pinned to the ground giggling himself silly as Stan cleaned
his ears. That was too cute!

It was a good day. The boys got to see some working dogs (ok - mostly
just Lin) and touch a duck, something city kids probably never got to
do, and we had oodles of fun. And the dogs got ice cream on the way
home.

[Note: I originally wrote this on June 17, 2010].