Blues Walkies at Koobabbie Precinct

4 Dec

Main Street, Coorow, Western Australia 6515

The Koobabbie Precinct is a heritage space choc-a-block with farming & domestic artefacts 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.

Event flyer designed by Year 6 student Heidi.

For the Blues Walkies experience, each student set up and ran an activity to engage the community. This included: a dog-stacle course, dog tricks stage, fur baby photo-shoot, pat a nice dog, Blue Paws art experience, Snoopy Heritage Trails, as well as random give-aways. Human participants of these activities received dog themed prizes, while the canines involved received treats from Chew it Over with Canine Candy; a fabulous Geraldton based business. Community health organisations headspace and Desert Blue Connect were present promoting mental support services available in the MidWest. Jurien Bay based Many Paws Grooming provided free nail clipping, and Three Springs veterinarian Banksian Vet offered free dog health advice. Matt from WA Contract Ranger Services came along to do free pet microchipping. The local police officers shouted all attendees lunch with a cracking sausage sizzle, crisps and fruit boxes!. (The kids LOVED these!) The Old Ute Cafe (run by the Coorow Resource Centre) even offered free hot drink vouchers to visitors!

Pat a Nice Dog EXPERIENCE

For the junior students who are afraid of dogs, or just a bit hesitant in their company, Year 5 student Rory set up a spot where visitors could come and practice patting the plush dog Hashbrown, followed by patting a real dog -Blue! Rory revealed that one of his favourite moments of the entire event was when “all the junior primary kids came running over to see Blue and give him a pat. I ran out of dog treats pretty quickly!”

Blue had and ABSOLUTE BALL being the star of the show and received many treats during his ‘time on the clock.’

**Blues Walkies Reflection** – *I really like this photo because it shows the activity set up of teaching kids how to pat a dog, then they can do it on a real dog! When the kids did it, they got a prize from Rory.* ***Albert, Year 6.***

Dog Tricks

We wanted the dogs to ‘show off’ the clever things they can do as a wonderful way to entertain and inspire our visitors. We felt it was an indirect way to motivate people to spend more time ‘training’ their own dog, as its truly beneficial for pet mental health and bonding. Our students also beamed with pride when others witnessed their fur baby complete a trick. In addition to this, the dogs LOVED receiving treats for their efforts. That’s a win, win, WIN! Albert, who ran the Tricks Stage commented: It was great to see all the different tricks that the dogs in our community can do. I loved giving out the prizes to both the humans and the dog participants! I just wish my dog could have been here today.”

Blues Walkies Reflection: It was amazing to see so many people and dogs attend the Blues Walkies event. Isn’t this the cutest dog on the planet? (See right.) The preparation for this event was good fun and it was great seeing everyone working together on it. Headspace came along and got a lot of visitors to their stall. Thank you Carnamah Lions and Cooladdi Farms for the funding to run this event. Tom, Year 6.

Shannon, Declan and Shadow on the Blues Walkies Tricks Stage.

As well as demonstrating dog tricks, there was a competition for the ‘happiest dog.’ This beautiful creature ‘Elsa’ was the well deserved winner.

Photo Shoot

If community members were going to the trouble of bringing their dog to town for an event, then we felt they should have the opportunity to have a nice photograph taken. Ava engaged people and pets walking by her studio to stop and take a seat with their fur baby so she could take a snap. Ava had the clever idea of offering to take a photo with the personal SMART device of guests, so they could send the photo on to lots of people in a quick timeframe. However, she also provided the option of taking a photo with her polaroid camera for a more artistic memento of the event.

Majority of participants chose to have their own device used which Ava graciously obliged.

Our stella photographer Ava even got to promote the Blues Walkies event on Jezz’s ABC Wheatbelt and MidWest Brekky Show. (We were sooooo proud of her!) Here she is with Jezz and All, and Blue in the background, at *One L Cafe* in Carnamah a week before the event.

Year 5 & 6 students seen here on our ‘practice day’ a week before the official event where we set up some of the activities to rehearse how we’d engage with the community. We wanted to check how many people we could fit on the rug and ottoman. *Hashbrown* (the retriever dog plush) became our mascot after that!

Rory, Emma, and Hannah during their Fur Baby Photo Shoot.

The Blues Walkies team with Abi from Many Paws Dog Grooming looking snazzy in our Blues Walkies hats. Many thanks to the Sewing Shop for their generosity of embroidering our logo on the hats for free!

Blues Walkies Reflection - This photo means a lot to me because it’s where I spent the whole event. This stall is the Fur Baby Photo Shoot space where you bring your dog in and sit down while I take some photos with your camera. We worked so hard to make this day happen. It’s amazing thinking of all the people who came and watched the event go smoothly. I learned a lot about business and being enterprising. Thank you, Miss Herbert and my Year 5/6 colleagues. Ava, Year 6.

Dogstacle Course

Any activity that encourages the mental stimulation and agility of dogs is of great benefit to them. Our Year 6 student Heidi was aware of this and wanted to created an enjoyable yet challenging obstacle course for dogs to complete… even with very limited resources with which to make one. Employing school equipment, gear from our Sports Carnival kits and two ute-loads of tyres, Heidi created a stimulating space for dogs and their owners to enjoy.

Many thanks to Luci and Carnamah Tyres for donating two ute-loads of tyres for the event.

Blues Walkies Reflection – I was in charge of the Dogstacle Course during the Blues Walkies event. I volunteered for this position because I love seeing and helping dogs go through obstacles. I loved watching the dogs and their owners giving it their best shot. They all did so well, and I was proud of every one of them. Heidi, Year 6.

Ruby-Blu all loaded up with tyres from Carnamah Tyres for the Blues Walkies Dogstacle Course. Ruby-Blu was a very important member of the Blues Walkies team; she collected many pieces of equipment for the event from Perth and surrounds. Thanks Ruby!

Blue Paws Art

Back in the 1970s, the Art Gallery of Australia purchased Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock for 1.3 million dollars. Many people thought it was a COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY but in 2023 this work of art was valued at 350 million dollars, so it was a pretty good investment after all!

We thought that it would be fun to create our own Pollock style of art using the blue paw prints of dogs attending the event with the expectation that dogs would LOVE to step into blue paint and then walk all over a canvas creating gorgeous little paw prints. To be honest, only some dogs were brave enough to dip their paws into the blue paint and try the experience, but the younger attendees of the event LOVED doing free-base art. Many thanks to the North Midlands Project for supplying the paint and drop sheets for this activity.

Coorow Primary School Art Teacher Miss Herbert, hanging out with the enormous Blues Poles in Canberra prior to the Blues Walkies event.

**Blues Walkies Reflection** – This photo is one of my favourites because makes me happy to see that even the little ones wanted to join in on the fun. The young girl in the photo, Emmy, was at my Blue Paws Art Station almost the whole time. I could see that she loved painting! ***Romy, Year 5.***

Its lots of fun to just paint and let your creative side go free… even on a hot day!

DOG TRAILS

To encourage exploration of the vintage artefacts at the Koobabbie Precinct, students placed large plastic snoopy figurines and dog toy plushies within the collection in both easy and hard-to-find places. Dogs that accompanied the ‘searchers’ enjoyed sniffing old tractors, engines and agricultural equipment on display. Creating trails at the Precinct is something that Coorow Primary School students do very well. In 2022, the senior class developed the Koobabbie Trail Guide for visitors to refer to while exploring the collection.

Click on the button below to access a digital version of the Koobabbie Trail which also displays images of its official launch.

Koobabbie trail guide - coorow primary school

Rory presented Kira with her prize on behalf of Cooladdi Farms. Awesome smiles!

BLUES WALKIES ART COMPETITION

Our awesome sponsor Cooladdi Farms provided Blues Walkies with funds to purchase items for our community event AND they supplied us with blue-themed dog toys to give away. One such give away was a large, blue, dog ball given to Year 1 student, Kira who won the Blues Walkies Art Competition. All entries were displayed at the event.