Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Service Dog Awareness Night

This was my second year attending this event. Naturally I let my human come too. We also had Lana in tow and Cadence joined the scooter pull team for awhile. Cadence is only 6 months old however and quickly became impossibly tangled in Lanas' leash.

This year we were actually in a slightly better spot than last year. Well we weren't behind the jumbo screen thing anyways and it was a bit cooler once they closed the roof and fired up the AC. This year we were directly in front of the beer pump room in fact. Kinda cool in some ways but rather annoying when the ball park employees had to repeatedly get in there to pull out more kegs.

The crowds were crazy and we barely had time to relax, and that was before the general public was let in! Once the spectators started flooding in the craziness tripled. Still my human did manage to get a meal or two and like last year she even gave me a little bite from the hot dog. You know I only agree to go with her to these events for the food right.

We did manage to get one lap in around the stadium before the onslaught of the masses encroached and made movement very difficult. It's a very big stadium. Of course they all are.

I was petted and loved on all night long. It was glorious! All the dogs, and I think we may have had around a dozen dogs at the Arizona Goldens LLC booth, enjoyed all sorts of love and attention all night. The other sitters, raisers and handlers that showed up to help were fantastic. If they hadn't shown up I probably wouldn't have gotten as much one on one time with my human. As it was Lana and Cadence were each handed off to other handlers for the night.

During the short but blissful lulls in the crowds you'd think my human would relax and allow me to do the same, but no, she didn't. She made me work. I started doing tricks, some simple stuff and lots of retrieving. Because of the constant roar from those actually watching the baseball game we did have to stick with commands that my human could give with hand gestures only. Yes I was trained with both verbal and gesture commands but we haven't practiced the gestures much in quite a while, it showed, I barked.

In my defense, it was all every exciting and I simply couldn't contain it, that and trying to remember gestures I hadn't seen in a long time it was all just too much. Still we did attract several crowds during our little sessions so maybe my barking wasn't all bad? Hummmm..

I don't know how many flyers we handed out that night. My human did notice that her little stash of flyers was disappearing a lot faster than she was handing them out. Apparently many of the other handlers started using her little pile on the scooter because it was easier than holding their own. She did find it very funny that nearly every time she reached for a flyer to hand out they were nearly gone, even right after she re-supplied herself.

Towards the end of the evening Cadence once again found herself tethered to the scooter. The helpers all took off to watch the fireworks. My human and I, and Cadence watched the rest take apart the booth and pack it away for the trip home. Then they grabbed some dogs and headed for the door. My human tried to get their attention but she figured she'd just hold Cadence as hostage and they'd eventually realize they were not only missing Cadence but that they had Lana who was supposed to come back home with us.

Ashley and pup Prescott joined us in the confusion. Cadence laid down on the scooter foot rest totally exhausted so my human let her ride there as we headed for the door. A quick stop at the grass so the pups could pee, and pee they did, then we continued on our way.

We got lost. Ended up at the wrong parking garage, humans have no sense of direction. Thankfully a nice police officer pointed us in the right direction. We finally arrived at my humans van shortly before the AZG folks did. We all exchanged hostage puppies and went on our separate ways.

Lana and I were dead tired when we got home. We were both out cold long before my human. Now it's only 300 some odd days before we get to do it again!! My human and I are both looking forward to next year already.

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