Due to lack of sleep I think I am suffering for a lack of imagintation, so wondered if CD friends would chuck some ideas "into the pot" for me?  We have a group up here in the North East called Pugs in the Park, meet up a few times each year for pug walks, and have a couple of parties too (Usually Christmas, this year we had a Valentine and a May Day one). We are now organising a series of "Pug Summer Fun and Games", these are going to be each week through June, July & August, just an hour per session.  So, thats the intro, now the question - ideas for themes for the evenings anyone?  Each session is an hour long in a lovely new training venue.  So far we have 1)Doggy Dancing (heel work to music) 2)Have a go Agility 3)First Aid for Dogs  4)Canine Massage  6 )Dog Fashion Show  7) Finals for a pug photo competiton  8)Flygility (a mix of agility and flyball I think)  9) Canine aromatherapy (if I can find an expert). 

We have 13 sessions booked, so need another 4 ideas - if can't come up with anything we could always repeat 1 or 2 of the above.

What would you like to see/do if you were attending a fun or informative doggy hour - bear in mind the attendees are almost all pugs with a few Frenchis and Chins sometimes too.  All input much appreciated.

What fun...! :)

How about someone making quick...healthy...natural treats for dogs...???

And a prize for the nutritious treat that goes down best with the doggie SuperStars attending on the day...???

Hope that helps...! Lol...! :)

How about "Teach your Pug a party trick" a bit of fun obedience like shake a paw, speak , I taught Pepsi to bark on command so she can count...Just hold up so many fingers and ask her how many and praise quickly when she reaches the right number so she stops barking LOL, roll over, turn round etc.. quick easy to learn "tricks"
Aileen

Fun Nose Work, activation hints/tips to keep the brains of the little pugs going :) so things you can do at home using cups, towels etc making little trails for them to follow(are blood trails used here in UK?)
Clicker training
Doggy language - 1 hour is not a lot so you could concentrate on something like calming signals?
What about session with a dog behaviorist where questions could be asked?

Rally obedience - google on Talking Dogs Rally, APDT rally or Pet Dog Rally obedience, there are 3 different groups running rally competitions at the moment!! TD or APDT is probably your best bet, PDRO is more Suffolk based. I've seen pugs do formal obedience so I'm sure rally wouldn't be beyond them. :-)

I think an hour is WAY too short.

Our local club had a talk and demonstration by the Kent Fire Brigade Search and Rescue Dogs - it was absolutely enthralling and has confirmed that I would like to train my next dog in lowland search and rescue.

Other events have included a talk by a shepherd accompanied by his dog, a guess the breed competition, and a talk by a T Touch practitioner - all of which were either good fun or very informative.

hide and seek?
Hide a treat and first pug to find it is the winner?!
Would be hilarious to watch, as long as they all get on :)
Alternatively individual hide and seek on a timed basis......fastest wins :)

Thaks for all the great suggestions everyone, brain now working overtime to see how many we can fit in!

Nothing to do with your question, but did you know that a little black pug was the ONLY dog representing Spain in the World Agility Championships held in Bristol a couple of weeks ago?  He didn´t get a top placing but overall came out very "middling".  Other teams were from Japan, Argentina, Canada, Australia and goodness knows where else.  Just thought you pug people might like that bit of useless information.  LOL

what about TTouch?

> but did you know that a little black pug was the ONLY dog representing Spain in the World Agility Championships

No I had no idea - I am very new to anything to do with Agility, peple are always amazed that Pugs can do agility and do it well too!  Karen White, who has one of my pugs currently at Gr3, is getting together a pug agility team to run competitively (I am supplying dogs and a nephew, unable to run them myself)  Still in the early days of training, but so far at least 50 % of the pugs who have had try outs have been very able and have loved it.  We now have pug agility training each Monday evening with about 10 attending so far.

Wow.... a Pug Agility Display Team running relays in a mock competition would be really fun to watch.

Not a fun day activity but we had a FCR canal boat trip for owners an dogs to go on and while the boat was cruising along a lady who had been in the breed for years gave a talk about dogs that she knew years ago. Another activity was a pub walk owners and dogs walked along a set route calling in a pub for lunch and for tea before heading home so maybe a themed walk might be interesting..

Lovely ideas Polly, but we have the centre booked for an hour each Thursday evening thorughout the summer months, so have to be activites we can do in the arena, but will bear in mind for our regular outdoor meet ups.

Karen was actually contacted by someone yesterday at an agility comp. to see if we can get 2 teams together to do pretty much just that.  We hope that when other pug people from around the country find out about this they will be encouraged to set up training in their areas.  there are a few pugs who do agility around the UK, including a Ch bitch, Niko the pug I bred, and a lidy near Merseyside who has a team of them.  So far these have been seen to be the exceptions rather than the norm.  We are aiming to get peole looking at pugs "en masses" in a very different light.