This is our 3rd year participating in this event. Tracy organized it and had her cocker Deacon with her, ably aided by her mom (she had Mindy with her) and dad. Jean was there with Sprint, Angel & Edwina. Jill was there with Ivan. Two additional folks with therapy dogs were there, one with Dobermans, the other with French Bull dogs and chihuahuas. In addition to weight pull, there was a little agility course setup, as well as the tables with lots of info on dogs, dog care, things to do with your dog.

My boys were recognized as soon as we pulled in. Once the others got there, we all got to work settup up our space. There's no shade at this end of the park, so as you can see in the photos we created some shade for the dogs.

Both of the boys had a chance to do the little jumps and the tunnel. This wasn't a regulation sized tunnel, so Sebastian surprised me by going through, good boy.

There wasn't a big crowd to start, and it never really got big. Because there was an advertised pet costume contest and parade, there were many people with dogs. For the most part all of the dogs were well behaved.

I took Cinnabar for a walk through the crowd to see all the tents. I was pleasantly surprised that all of the kids on that walk asked if they could pet him, and thanked them for doing so. Earlier one young girl had snuck into the shaded enclosure and had her hands through crates. I told her about that, and that she should always ask before petting strange dogs and to never put her hands through crates. I took out Cinnabar for her to pet. Then her grandmother came over looking for her, and I told her grandmother what had happened. She was unconcerned and said she has dogs at home that she loves. I tried talking to her about how that doesn't always translate to dogs unknown to her, but I wasn't getting through.

Once when I had Sebastian out to pull, that same young girl came flying straight at him, ready to hug him. I said to her "ask, remember what we talked about?". She finally asked and I let her pet him. Jean spent more time with her telling her about the proper way to approach strange dogs, but it wasn't getting through. Thank goodness she was an exception, as the majority of the kids were great about asking. And when I told them with Sebastian, "one at a time", they were good about that.

Jill gave a scheduled talk about Therapy dogs, but mostly spent lots of one-on-one time with folks on the subject. Some people had come from both Philly and Jersey specifically to get info on Therapy dogs. One was a psychologist who thought it would work well with her practice. She seemed willing to put in the work to train a dog, and Jill said she'd make herself available to go to the SPCA with her to pick out a dog to work with.

On my second walk through the venue with Cinnabar, we saw the Reading Phillies' Mascot. He's got a funny body costume and a baseball head, but Cinnabar just nudged his costumed hands looking to be petted. LOL!

For weightpull, it was mostly Cinnabar and Sebastian, Sprint (Doberman) pulled a couple times, as did Angel. Sprint's brother also gave it a try. What a mellow boy he is, he was great with it and I think would do well in competition. He was totally unconcerned with something behind him.

Because of the heat, I just had the boys pull twice in a row each, then into the shade for a while before pulling again. The crowds of the last two years never materialized.

All the dogs, not just my boys, were feeling the heat. No one was really acclimated to it with the mild spring we've had. Lots of tired doggies, and without the huge crowds, we all packed up early and were out of there by 3. While not as many were interested in weight pull or agility this year, many were interested in the dogs themselves. We all answered lots of questions, and by in large, most of those people had good etiquette in dealing with dogs.

Here's all the photos here in my Schwenksville 2012 Album

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