Events like last Saturday’s Tails on the Trails pet festival in Lenexa are supposed to be fun for pets and their owners. That is, assuming you don’t have an overly timid or aggressive animal. Neither of those takes well to crowds.
I showed up with one of each in tow – Georgie, a shy, little Chihuahua I was dog sitting, and Scooby, my crotchety, middle-aged miniature pinscher. Scooby started voicing his opposition to the event as soon as we crossed the little cement walkway that leads into the park behind Ad Astra Swimming Pool. Mild-mannered basset hounds winced at his shrill yaps, probably wondering what the heck he was complaining for. A few more steps and he’d have access to free biscuits aplenty and infinite butts to sniff.
About 30 vendors, including veterinarians, animal trainers, rescue groups, doggy day care providers and a microchipping service, had set up tables and tents in the grassy area. Festival-goers checked in at the first table – under which Georgie took immediate cover – to get a vendor directory. Over Scooby’s intermittent back-off barks to other dogs, a woman calmly explained to me that if I returned the sheet of paper with stickers proving I’d visited every booth, I’d be entered in a drawing for various prizes.
I untangled my dogs and headed for a neighboring booth – Spay and Neuter Kansas City. Georgie clung to my leg, and I tried to calm Scooby with a free biscuit. But the dog who would normally nip my finger in his excitement over a treat took the bone half-heartedly. I guess for an eight-pound dog, looming people feet, a horse, grabby toddlers and horse-sized dogs might overshadow the thrill of a dry biscuit.
We headed back toward the entrance to wait for my friend Jessica and her dog, Andy. Surely once his min pin buddy arrived, Scooby would chill.
He didn’t really, and Georgie demanded to be held the whole time. But Jessica and I sweated our way around the festival, anyway, collecting stickers, brochures, biscuits and comments on our choice of canine companions. One lady tried to sell us on agility training for Scooby and Andy. Another chick told us to keep back when they stood on their back legs and peered into an open box containing a hedgehog. (Maybe it shouldn’t have been on the ground in the first place.) And one more woman – because the majority of the crowd was female – asked if Georgie was “supposed to look like that.” As I explained that he used to live under a dumpster and the stress of that has something to do with why there’s a bald spot on his back, I started to understand why the little guy’s so nervous around people.
Maybe Scooby was just barking at all the other dogs to keep them away from his best friend. Or maybe, like so many other dog-obsessed people there, I’m just prone to anthropomorphizing.
-- Crystal K. Wiebe
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