Dogs at the Dogwood Parade

Recall how Jake the Three-Legged Wonder Wiener won his very first wiener dog race at the Mardi Pals event, held by Paw Pals?

You should. It's been practically the only thing I've talked about for the last month.

Anyway, Jake made quite an impression on the Paw Pals people. A week after our stunning upset victory (and subsequent unstunning loss), Jan from Paw Pals emailed me and asked if I'd like to walk with the Paw Pals people in the annual Dogwood Parade.

I thought long and hard about it. Actually, I just checked the weather. But after I thought long and hard about the weather, I emailed her back and said "Sure!" As long as I could bring Gater and it wasn't raining, we'd be there.

Note: Jake, in case you've missed the four thousand other references, only has three legs. The parade route is three miles long. Our starting position was a mile behind the official starting point. I spent a lot of time wondering if people would be able to see Jake's legs if I carried him the whole way.

Parade day arrived--overcast, humid, and temps in the low 60s. Perfect wiener dog walking weather!

First we met up with the other walkers and dogs.









There was a lot of sniffing. Most of it was inappropriate for a family parade.

The Royal Court from Mardi Pals got to ride:








(Once upon a time, I knew the names of all these dogs and their people. Those brain cells have since died in a flood of sinus-based snot. My apologies.)

We waited to begin.



The people behind us waited even longer.



Finally, we were off!



From the spot where we normally watch parades (see last week's Presidential Parade post for the locale), there aren't that many people in the crowd of parade watchers. It turns out that our block is an anomaly--the route is PACKED the rest of the way.



It turns out that it's somewhat hard to hang on to two over-excited dogs, walk, and take pictures at the same time, so when I saw my husband, I handed over the camera.





He only took one other picture:

because he knew I'd be sorry I missed them. What a guy!

Funny story:

My senior boss lives along the parade route. He, his lovely wife, and their son (the junior boss) and his family were all watching the parade. I went over to say hi, we chit-chatted, and then the junior boss looked down and saw . . . .

Gater peeing on his shoe.

Really.

I'm sure you'll be happy to know that I remain gainfully employed. I know I'm happy to know that. I almost killed Gater right then and there, though, but that seemed to be in poor taste, given we were walking an animal rescue organization.

All in all, we had a good time (peeing notwithstanding). Jake managed to walk all but about 15 minutes of the parade, and the kids (who had a good angle to see the missing leg) loved him. Gater was a little uncomfortable with all the extra attention (see above mention of peeing incident) but Jake was living it up.

He slept for the next 20 hours, though.

Fame can do that to a fellow.