Monday, October 21, 2013

Now That Was a Busy Weekend: Part 1 – Pooch Parade

As if our Saturdays aren’t busy enough with Kai’s special needs activities for ice skating, boxing, and soccer, this week we also went to two additional events on Saturday.

First was the Spooky Pooch Parade at our local botanic garden. We went there with two of the dogs that my wife sees often, and their owners.

There was Riley, who was a beautiful pumpkin ballerina.


And, Momo, who was an adorable witch.


This is an annual event, but it was the first time we had attended. This is the only day of the year that dogs are allowed at the garden, and there were a lot of dogs taking part in the event.

The three-headed dog was one of my favorites.


Many dogs came dressed for the horticultural theme of the botanic garden.


And we also saw a lot of owner and dog combinations.


My guess is that there were over a thousand dogs there, and it was a crush of people and animals as we waited for the judging to be completed before the parade would begin.

My wife and I enjoyed looking at all of the dogs, but Kai was getting grumpy at all the waiting. We thought perhaps that we would take a break from the crowd and go get a snack before the parade began.

Of course, as soon as we go to the cafeteria, Kai started becoming anxious that we would miss the start of the parade. With his loud grumbling, I barely had time to take a bite of a cookie before we hurried back to the area where all the dogs were.

The parade started soon after, and Kai enjoyed marching in it alongside Mom and Riley.


I could have taken hundreds of pictures, but here are just a few of other dogs we saw.





For those of you who want to see more pictures, I direct you to the website of Chicago Botanic Garden.

My wife and Kai did the short route of the parade while I snapped these pictures. It would have been fun to stay a bit longer, but I think Kai had had enough by then.

And besides, we still had a long rest of the day ahead of us.


5 comments:

  1. wow...that's a lot of people and dogs! I bet you saw some really cute costumes!

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    Replies
    1. Some people really went all out. I never saw so many dressed-up dogs before, and many were very creative.

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  2. I must say...I have never heard of such an event. It is a good idea. I have always found core qualities I like in people who love animals. What I like most about this article...is the sense of community...and good clean fun that people can have...even in large numbers.

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    Replies
    1. That is a good description, the sense of community. In addition to the dog owners, there were plenty of people who observed the festivities, and it really was great clean fun.

      Delete
  3. Hey, I couldn’t find an email address… Can you email me so I can ask you a question about your dog?
    –Shaye
    shayewalsh1@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

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