Shiona Herbert 6/6/24 Shiona Herbert 6/6/24

Blues Breakfast Walkies - Koobabbie Precinct

Main Street, Coorow, Western Australia 6515

On a gorgeous, sunny, morning in late May, 36 people and 14 dogs rocked up the Koobabbie Precinct to enjoy a free sausage sizzle breakfast and doggy treats trail.

This was a great way to encourage visitors to explore artefacts at the Koobabbie Precinct, which offers a collection of farming & domestic items acquired from around the Shire of Coorow. It gets it’s name from the Waddy Forrest based farm Koobabbie, where majority of the collection derives from.

Hot chocolate, breakfast snags and dog pats, were in hot demand! The most popular dog treat (based on the very small amount left) were the dried Turkey Sausages from Geraldton based business Chew it over with Canine Candy.

What a great way to socialise with the community, exercise your dog, and enjoy a hot brekky! (All great ingredients for chasing those blues away.)

Snoopy dog treats trail

To encourage exploration of the vintage artefacts in the Koobabbie Precinct, large plastic snoopy figurines accompanied by boxes of dog treats were placed around the collection in both easy and hard-to-find places. Our four legged visitors enjoyed sniffing out the treats as well as the old tractors, engines and agricultural equipment on display.

THANK YOU!

BIG thanks to everyone who came along for breakfast AND to those who brought their dogs for a sniff and a play!

BIGGER thanks to members of the Coorow Heritage Group who cooked & served a tasty breakfast and the young people of the community who volunteered their time during the event.

MASSIVE THANKS to our valued sponsors & supporters: Shire of Coorow, Elders, Wozza's Carpentry, Coorow-Waddy Forrest CWA, and Coorow Primary School.

BLUES BREAKFAST WALKIES EVENT GALLERY

Sometimes dogs are a little cautious of each other upon first meeting, but they soon figure out that they are safe and are up for a play!

Look at the love between these two. The love and loyalty of a dog is second-to-none.

MASSIVE thanks to the Coorow CRC publication The Magpie Squawk for putting US ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE LOCAL RAG!

Coorow Primary School students drummed up interest and promoted the event.

The oldest dog in the pack was happy to watch from a quieter spot at the Precinct. xx

Great to local kids spending time with their furry friends.

We were delighted that local children were happy to pitch in and volunteer their time to turn snags, flip onions, serve sausages, make hot chocolates, give out dog prizes, take photos, AND DO THE DISHES! Little legends! Thank you so much!

SPONSORS & SUPPORTERS GALLERY

to our high calibre sponsors & supporters We shout:

“thank you for your pawesome support!”

Let us know about other great dog walks you’ve gone in the Mid West at blueswalkies@gmail.com

Shiona Herbert 18/3/24 Shiona Herbert 18/3/24

2024 CA DOGGY PLAY

COMMUNITY DOG SOCIALISING IN CARNAMAH

Its so important for dogs to spend time with other dogs and we love to see them run-a-mock on the CA Footy Oval a few times each week.

Drinking tubs & trays are supplied as well as toys for the dogs to play with at the oval. On the hotter evenings we set up a sprinkler or small plastic pools full of water for the dogs to frolic in. The kids are welcome to run through the sprinklers and splash in the pools too.

All are welcome: locals, visitors, contractors, blow-ins… just pop in and give a dog a pat!

For more information contact Herby (Shiona Herbert) via blueswalkies@gmail.com or, contact Shiona directly via facebook messenger.

“I’m not sure how my dog will go interacting with other dogs!”

It's so PAWesome to welcome new doggos (and their owners) to our CA Doggy Play sessions. We understand however that it can be a bit daunting taking your precious fur baby to engage in a new experience… WITH OTHER DOGS!

From running these sessions for a while now, we're seeing a typical pattern with new dogs:

1st session: they are happy but overwhelmed and show a lot of submissive body language and/or defensive barking. It can be a bit anxiety provoking for the owner, but the first step is always the hardest.

2nd session: they're more comfortable with the energy of dogs around them but are still a bit wary and hesitant.

3rd session: the new doggo shows more confidence in their dog interactions and we start to see their true personality come out.

4th session onwards: they are initiating play with other dogs; confident to grab a toy, and are ecstatic to run with the pack!

It's beautiful to see their confidence and social engagement grow over time! 😍🐾💙😍🐾💙

Massive CHEERS to all those who make the time to bring their dogs to Doggy Play sessions (whatever your location). Our dogs are so much healthier for it! 🐾🌞🐾🌞🐾🌞🐾

DOGGY CATCH UP’s in THREE SPRINGS

If you’re closer to Three Springs, be sure to join their doggy play sessions held on weekends.

Three Springs cater to the needs of smaller dogs playing with smaller dogs and big dogs running-a-mock together, so that play styles are tailored to dog size. (Although we know plenty of small dogs that love to rough and tumble with the big beasts.)

Check their play schedule via their facebook page Three Springs Pooches. Woof!

MIDWEST WA DOGGY PLAY SESSIONS - how it ALL started

It all started with this basic flyer pinned to community notice boards and uploaded to facebook.

CA DOGGY PLAY 2023 Reflection

Meeting up on a regular basis at the local footy oval between 5pm-6pm for our furry friends to run & sniff has been a wonderful social experience for dogs and humans alike. We kicked the idea off in August and it went from 3 dogs & 4 people turning up on the very first session, to some nights where there were 12 people and 8 dogs attending. It’s been fantastic!

Locals and out-of-towners rocked up.
Visitors staying at the caravan park with their dogs rocked up.
Tradies & contractors staying in Carnamah who brought their dogs with them rocked up.
People without dogs rocked up!

Those who attended exchanged phone numbers for extra dog catch-ups and made arrangements for informal Doggy Day Care sessions. Local kids and teenagers came along to enjoy the safe, fun, social environment of happy dogs. We created a Sunday Session doggy play schedule to meet the needs of those who just couldn’t make it on week-day-evenings. Even a romance blossomed between two attendees of CA doggy play sessions. (Awwww.)

The Carnamah Lions Club generously donated dog toys and locals gave up their old, plastic, sand-pit pools to create Doggo Water World for our fur babies on those ruddy hot days when its still 38 degrees at 5pm! (Dogs still want to run around even on scorching days.)

From August to December, we saw 60 different people attend a CA Doggy Play and we met A LOT of dogs, so we’re really looking forward to cranking up these sessions again in 2024!

CA Doggy Play session when we set up *Doggo Water World* for the beasties to jump and splash around in. THEY HAD A BALL!

DOGGY PLAY SESSIONS IN COOROW… ON THEIR WAY

We’ve been putting diplomatic pressure on the Shire of Coorow to establish an official dog exercise area as we sometimes get people travelling all the way from Coorow to attend the CA Doggy Play sessions. We don’t mind the extra furry play-mates that turn up, but we believe it would be beneficial for Coorow to have its own dog park so that money can go to dog treats rather than petrol costs. We’ve heard on the grapevine that its on the cards. Fingers crossed it will be built in 2025!

If you’re in Coorow, ask a local where they exercise their dogs. The more we talk about it, the more likely a dog park will come to fruition!

Thanks for your support. xx

Let us know about other great dog walks you’ve gone in the Mid West at blueswalkies@gmail.com

Shiona Herbert 25/12/23 Shiona Herbert 25/12/23

Christmas & New Year Message

Carnamah, Western Australia 6517

“Santa paws is coming to town”

Wow, what a year!

From creating a website that highlights gorgeous places to walk your dog the MidWest, to lobbying for an official dog park, AND running a sizable community event, the Blues Walkies concept took off like a robbers dog!

www.blueswalkies.com

Since publishing the Blues Walkies site in April of 2023, we’ve had 2.5 thousand visits! Majority have come from Australia, but we’ve also had many hits from Canada, the UK, America, France, Germany, Singapore, and even a visit from someone in the Republic of Korea! This is incredibly exciting and further demonstrates that people all around the world value their dogs.

Making content for this platform, i.e., finding out who provides pet friendly accommodation, who are the highly regarded pet groomers in the area, where are the vets located, who makes quality dog treats etc.., lead to meeting high calibre people who really love dogs and their community. Spending time with these characters and highlighting their dog-related-passions helped improve my mental health tremendously.

Many thanks you legends!

CA DOGGY PLAY SESSIONS

Locals and out-of-towners rocked up.
Visitors staying at the caravan park with their dogs rocked up.
Tradies & contractors staying in Carnamah who brought their dogs with them rocked up.
People without dogs rocked up!

Those who attended exchanged phone numbers for extra dog catch-ups and made arrangements for informal Doggy Day Care sessions. Local kids and teenagers came along to enjoy the safe, fun, social environment of happy dogs. We created a Sunday Session doggy play schedule to meet the needs of those who just couldn’t make it on week-day-evenings. And even a romance blossomed between two attendees of the CA doggy play sessions. (Awwwwww.)

From August to December, we saw 60 different people attend a CA Doggy Play and we met A LOT of dogs, so we’re really looking forward to cranking up these sessions again in 2024!

Blues Walkies teamed up with local business One L of a Feed to bring the joy of coffee & dogs together.

The *Sunday Session* schedule piloted in 2023.

The official *Blues Walkies Event* flyer designed by Year 6 student Heidi.

BLUES WALKIES COMMUNITY EVENT

Kids are the best ambassadors for drumming up enthusiasm for a concept. Their motives are pure and they have HEAPS more energy than adults do. Students at Coorow Primary School really got on board with the importance of walking your dog to improve your mental health by running the Blues Walkies Event at the Koobabbie Precinct. 68 people and 15 dogs attended. It was a scorcher of a day, so massive THANKS to the locals and visitors who turned up! We were thrilled that local MP Melissa Price promoted the event on her social platforms. Cheers Melissa!

The Blues Walkies Event team - Year 5 & 6 students from Coorow Primary School. Click on the button further below to see more photos and learn more about the event.

Blues walkies event - koobabbie PRecinct

SUPPORTING THE COMMUNITY

Following the huge success of the Blues Walkies Event, Coorow Primary students took it a step further by creating Doggo Support Bags full of dog kibble, gourmet treats, pet toys & accessories, human treats + contact information to local mental health organisations. These were lovingly created to give away to local families and residents finding it tough to stretch their holiday budget to cover dog food & treats.

The smiles generated while assembling these bags were as big as the grins on those who received the bags.

Ready to roll out the Blues Walkies Dog Support Bags to the fur babies across the MidWest.

Just some of what the bags contained. What isn’t seen here is a big bag of kibble, teeth cleaning chew sticks, and a pencil case full of dog toys & accessories.

Shanté with the Doggo Support Bag she created for the community.

Lobbying for change

After seeing how successful the CA Doggy Play sessions were in Carnamah, particularly with residents from Coorow and Three Springs travelling all that way to attend, it was apparent that surrounding towns would benefit greatly from having a safe place for dogs to be ‘off-leash’ to stretch, run, sniff, and play. Blues Walkies therefore encouraged adults and kids alike to voice their opinion to the Shire of Coorow about the need for a dog park.

Following the noise that was made in regard to this, it was thrilling to learn that the Shire has plans to establish a fenced-in dog park in the next 18 months. A more recent demonstration of action by the Shire was the installation of more dog poo bag dispensers around the town.

Cheers to the Shire of Coorow for their support!

Here are the Year 5 and 6 students from Coorow Primary School emailing local Councillors to request their support for installing a Dog Park in Coorow. This is not the first time these socially-aware students have expressed their ideas for improving the community. Prior to this they submitted surveys to Melissa Price - Member for Durack - revealing their thoughts and ideas for progressing Coorow. See Ms Price’s speech about their efforts via the button below.

Year 5/6 students mentioned in federal parliment

What’s in Store for 2024?

Blues Walkies will continue to add more great places to walk your fur babies on the website.

We’d also like to run some Starry, Starry, Night sessions where we all rock up to the CA footy oval between 8-9pm (on those super hot nights) with our doggies wearing lit-up-dog-collars, and let them run around under the stars in the cooler temperature.

Toward the end of the year we’d love to set up a Santa Paws photo experience where your dog can get a photo with Santa!

But in the meantime, keep taking those blues & beasties for a walk - it helps everyone in the long run.

Merry Woofmas,

Herby & Blue xx

Let us know about other great dog walks you’ve gone in the Mid West at blueswalkies@gmail.com