A dog will teach you unconditional love. If you can have that in your life, things won't be too bad.
I think Robert Wagner hit the nail on the head when he made that statement some years ago. My fiance and I own TWO Boykin Spaniels, a.k.a Swamp Poodles, and they are the sweetest, most loyal dogs we could ask for BUT if you know anything about the breed then you know they are hyper as fudge energetic! I am constantly looking for things to do with them to wear them out. Dog parks, ponds, even trips to PetSmart... anything to make them less hyper in the evenings. Fortunately, in a city this big there is ALWAYS something to do with them. Last weekend we discovered the Baltimore Humane Society Dog Fest so we immediately made plans to go. It was on a Saturday during the day which was perfect because it meant my fiance could go instead of me trying to wrangle both dogs all day by myself. We loaded up the Mini Cooper and headed out around noon. It was REALLY, REALLY hot outside which was one of the biggest downsides, because ALL of the dogs there were panting like crazy and trying to lay down as much as possible. There was a $10 entrance fee for the humans but it was worth it because all proceeds go to helping the humane society which is something I never mind. I mean, I can't even watch those Sarah McLachlan commercials without tearing up and scrambling to turn the channel as fast as humanly possibly so I'm certainly not even going to think twice about giving them $10. It's such a good cause and I can only hope more people get involved in helping out the humane society in their communities. Anyhoo, when you entered the Dog Fest, they gave you a bottle of cold water and a bowl for your little critters (thankfully, because like I said... it was burning up!) and they directed you to a GINORMOUS field set up with all sorts of fun for our furry friends. Some of the stations were free and some of them were $2-3 bucks. The dog swim was $3 and we really wanted to participate but the line was way too long by the time we got there so we decided to explore some of the other stations. They had so many fun games and contests including: Find the Treasure, Hide and Seek, Most Photogenic, Best Kisser, Smallest Dog, and the list goes on and on. The volunteers were all very helpful and really great with all the dogs. They even had an agility course if you wanted to see how skilled your pups could be at seesaws and jumping through hoops. Let's just say... you won't be seeing Rusty and Huck (our Boykins) on Animal Planet anytime soon! Eventually, it did get too hot for our pooches. Rusty just started plopping down anytime we found shade so we knew it was time to head back to the shaded area where they were serving food. They had 4-5 food trucks, including a SC BBQ truck that made me so happy to see, and lots of drink and dessert stands. Some of the food was a little bit pricey but a portion of it was all going to help the animals so I didn't mind as much. I had some delicious Ahi Tuna Tacos from the WOLO truck and C. got some concoction called a "Crab Cone" from a food truck called The Gypsy Queen. His food wasn't as good as mine, but we wanted to try a variety instead of both eating at the same truck. The fresh squeezed lemonade was probably my favorite part of the day, and it was probably only that good to me because of the heat but I don't care. We finally came full circle and ended up back at the beginning. While the Dog Fest was a lot of fun for the pooches and it was for a good cause, I still can't give it 5 stars. Obviously, they can't help the weather but some of the festivity lines could have been helped by letting more than one dog participate at a time. For example, the dog swim was the most popular event but so many people were skipping it because they would only let one dog swim at a time and the line just kept growing and growing. It was even longer when we left than we we arrived and it was pretty long when we got there. All in all, I give it 3.5 stars out of 5 and yes, I would do it again. Even if the humans don't have as much fun, the dogs had a blast and that's really why you go in the first place, right? I can't wait to do it again next year!
Oh yeah, another annoying aspect for us was people trying to guess what breed our dogs were. Being that they are a South Carolina breed, no one here has really ever seen them so we kept getting random people guessing things like "Is that the rare Lakota retriever?" or "Is that there a large cocker spaniel?" <--- What the heck is a Large Cocker Spaniel? Is that even a thing? Needless to say, if you have a rare breed, beware the crazy questions.
Bonus: Can you guess which one is Rusty and which one is Huck?
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