A Weekend of PawsAbilities:
Oh, the Things a Dog Could Do!
What did you and your dog do at PawsAbilities 2009? There was something for every pooch and their family.
Dogs of all shapes and sizes competed in the Dog Olympic Games. They raced to retrieve socks in the Going for Pairs Relay, ate everything on their plate in the Clean Plate Club, tested their obedience in Snoopy Says and wiggled under the limbo stick in Doggy Limbo, among many other games. Who knew there were so many canine Olympians?
In the Agility ring, large and small dogs tried their paws at the jumps, tunnels and weave poles. Some dogs and their owners may have walked away ready to start a new sport together!
Broadway came to the PawsAbilities stage! Famous animal trainer Bill Berloni and Chico the Chihuahua star of Broadway’s Legally Blonde The Musical presented their experiences in the limelight. Bill had rescued Chico, who had been abused by his previous owners, from a shelter in New Jersey. Using lots of love and positive training methods, Bill brought out the star in Chico. The Chihuahua became the first canine actor to bark lines onstage.
The day was filled with other exciting presentations and demonstrations. SSD Gideon showcased the skills of a service dog, retrieving a box of macaroni and cheese, a ladle, a travel coffee mug, a pen, sunglasses and a cordless phone. Accelerant K-9 Loki and her handler Detective Dennis Woodring demonstrated how Loki detects gasoline and other fire accelerants. Federally certified, Loki can distinguish between burned debris and fire accelerants and can locate those accelerants when they’re present at a fire scene 92% of the time. The Summit Search and Rescue bloodhounds Apache and Merit showed off their tracking abilities, trailing the scent of a young volunteer around the ring right to where she was hiding! In a different kind of hunting, the Northern Piedmont Retriever Club demonstrated hunting retrieving, the Appalachian Air Canines caught hundreds of frisbees – one border collie caught 42 in one minute! – and the Steppin’ Woofs, a canine freestyle dance troupe, do-si-doed and two-stepped their way through a hoe-down!
Two groups brought tremendous energy to the weekend – Keystone DockDogs and Flyball Dog Anonymous. The Keystone DockDogs seemed to defy gravity as they catapulted off the dock into a pool. In the Big Air finals, a canine long jump, the dog with the longest leap jumped over 25 feet off the dock! In the flyball ring, the Flyball Dogs bounded over four hurdles, snagged a tennis ball out of the air and raced back to the finish line. Even the dogs watching from the sideline got so excited they were straining at their leashes!
Pooches and people alike enjoyed shopping at over 50 vendor booths. The colorful and eye-catching displays of collars and leashes, pet clothing, beds and crates, tasty homemade treats, photography and more were a dog’s dream.
Each day wrapped up with the popular Abrams & Weakley Parade. After the parade wound through the Main Hall, the grand parade judges awarded prizes in 20 categories, including most Irish, most drool, spots, biggest paws and shortest legs.
New for PawsAbilities this year was the live video feed of many of the stage presentations and the exciting Keystone DockDogs Big Air finals. So you could follow the fun no matter where you were, we also posted live updates on Twitter (SSDOGS), our Facebook cause “Support Susquehanna Service Dogs” (www.facebook.com) and the SSD blog.
Thank you to all of our sponsors, vendors and volunteers for all your support and hard work!
If PawsAbilities 2009 brought this much fun, we can’t wait to see what PawsAbilities 2010 will bring! We’re looking forward to seeing you next year for another weekend of celebrating dogs and their amazing ability to brighten lives.