We Went To The Animal Fair...

(Does anyone else remember that children's song?) I digress. Today was the Long Beach Walk For The Animals. It was held at a local park, and all various and sundry animals were welcome to come and participate in a 2K or a 5K walk. GDA has always had a presence, and our area leaders were at a conference, so this early this morning, we packed up the EZ-up, GDA banner, etc, and went to represent our wonderful organization.

We were set up next to a dog supply type booth and the opossum rescue booth (complete with live opossum). Tai was, as usual, uber interested in everything. The biggest distraction to him were the small dogs. I'm not sure at what point today we actually managed to convince him that the Chihuahuas and other tiny barking things were NOT squeaky toys to be chased, but he gave up after awhile and managed to relax and be a good representative of our school.

Our mission was to sign up new puppy raisers, pre-order our 2008 calendars, and generally promote awareness. We think we have a few families interested in being puppy raisers, but the calendars were a no-go. We did however speak to a few people about their family members who were visually impaired. We gave them the info in order to connect with our school to see if they would qualify to receive a guide. That we may have recruited graduates as well as puppy raisers was very satisfying.

At about noon, the Walk had various religious leaders of the community come and do a Blessing of the Animals. Tai and his friends waited in line to be blessed by a local priest. Tai did his best to have respect - he slurped the priest, threw a paw at him asking to be pet more, and then tried to drink the Holy water the father was holding. Sigh. Tai makes an impression if nothing else.

Sunburned and feeling that we had our mission was accomplished, several us trooped over to a local mall to have a bite, where upon Tai finally crashed, having missed his post breakfast, prenoon, and postnoon naps, and oh yeah, walked 3.1 miles with Matthew.
Here you can see some of our group hanging out at our booth, promoting GDA and awareness everywhere: