The weekend

I had a pup friend Da’Raul come up this weekend to go to Kennel Klub. I haven’t been to KK since last year. Although I love the fact that Manchester has its own pup event, I never really want to go on my own because of the anxiety of just being there solo, and the event is really busy which causes me mayhem with my social anxiety. Sometimes I have a grip on this but this weekend proved again to me that its still something I need to work on.

Da’Raul came up with his pup to stay over at mine. I love the fact I now have some spare rooms to put up guests when they come to Manchester. It give me a reason to go out and attend events too, because I know I wouldn’t go out to them on my own.

It was great meeting Da’Raul and his pup Zephyrus. Zephyrus had been to KK before but it was Raul’s first time. KK was its usual brilliant event. Very busy still which had my anxiety going pretty strong, which as usual I coped with by hooding up and getting down to concentrate on the trainers and socks in the room (which I have to say there was a very limited white-sock quotient on Saturday!)

I think most of my anxiety comes from not remembering names of people that I’ve been introduced to, and that fear factor of doing or saying something stupid and pup/human names are even more complicated to remember and when you’re hosting new people and trying to almost take a responsibility for introductions, at times my head totally gets fried up and I resort to just trying to clear my mind for a few minutes.

Had a great time at KK though, and got onto the mats too (which suprised me) for a bit of a play, although I definitely am getting too old to keep up with the young dogs.

Collared was a bit different for me though, as a totally different social crowd with hardly anyone I knew and very young clique guys who I struggled to integrate with. It sort of put me in a strange headspace for the rest of the evening so I resorted into “handler” gear for that evenings Alert.

I enjoyed Alert socially again, because the music this month was bloody brilliant, but I always struggle to find someone to play with as a handler. Still looking for that pup to collar, own and call my own. Probably because I have to be in a dom mood, but I was in a weird one on Saturday and feeling a little bit vulnerable too. It may just have been a really long day and I was knackered, but also met up with my best mate back from Amsterdam so I was feeling more social anyway.