Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Ostrich Festival 2009

Once again my human and I attended the Ostrich Festival. This year my humans' friends Kathy, David and Cierra joined us. Gretchen and Charlie met up with us at the festival too.

As usual it was crowded and spent most of the day trying to persuade people to drop a little food with my irresistible "poor puppy" look. Sadly my human kept getting in the way but while I didn't get any snacks I did get a lot of loving pets and ear rubs.

We zipped over to the ostrich pens to see the big birds. The ostriches weren't very social but the emus came right over and tried to meet me beak to snout. My human decided that was a little too close so she backed me up. I'm not sure if she thought I was going to try to eat the emu or if it was going to try to eat me.

This year we watched the jousting show. The horses the knights rode were huge! I was more than a little unsure about getting too close and normally I don't mind horses. So my human was good enough to let me stay back and tucked up with the scooter while she went closer to get photos.

Then we all went down to stand in line for an ostrich burger; maybe they cook the losers from each race? The lines were long. My human had an ostrich burger, while the others had tenderloins and hotdogs. My human saved the last tiny bit of grilled ostrich carcass for me and it was delectable!

After a quick meal we headed back to the ostrich pens for the races. It was very hard to find a spot with a view because the whole area was swarming with people. Thankfully some folks did let us come threw and the guy in front of my human petted me a lot until she told him I was a service dog.

Normally the ostrich races go very smoothly. This year that was not the case. On the very first race a lady rider was seriously hurt and had to be rushed to the hospital with a concussion after the bird hit the corral fencing then fell on top of her. Thankfully there were several doctors in the audience who jumped the fence to aid her until the paramedics arrived. Once she was taken care of and safely away the show did go on.

A zebra preformed a few tricks; some kids in the audience chased the emus around the arena for a short race; some younger kids tried to herd chickens in a min-race and as usual that was very funny to watch. Well the humans laughed. I wanted to help get those chicks so badly I could almost taste the chicken nuggets. My human restrained me. Then the ostriches ran with chariots attached and finally they had a camel race. It was the same general venue as usual but always worth the trip to see it.

After a short rest in the shade we headed home. My human needed to get back to check on Atlantis who was home in the kennel. Someday she will attend these events too, just not yet.

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