There will be a lot of the standard dog greeting rituals at Turner Valley’s Royalite Millennium Park as Turner Valley Dog Days returns for its second go-round July 30.
This laid back event will once again give canines and their owners the chance mix and mingle in a safe and welcoming environment.
“It went great last year,” said event organizer and High Country SPCA president Cheryle Dobbyn. “There wasn’t one disagreement or one piece of poop left on the ground. It was great for families and dogs. It was a great day. So we are doing it again.”
Dobbyn explained one of the best things about Dog Days is it doesn’t require a whole lot of pre-planning for its attendees.
“You just come,” she said. “It’s free. There’s no charge. There’s no admission. We have an agility group coming out from Calgary that will do demonstrations for three or four hours. So you can sit in the bleachers and watch that. We’ll have some music and hopefully we’ll have some vendors selling stuff as swell.”
Providing the dogs who will be leaping over obstacles and racing through tunnels is the 2 x 4 Agility Group.
“We’ll set up some sort of a relay race,” said group co-founder Barb Turner. “Maybe we’ll have the big dogs against the small dogs, something fun like that for the people watching.”
Turner operates her agility operation along with her husband Randy. They don’t actually teach agility classes they instead highlight the skills of a wide variety of pooches that receive their training elsewhere.
“We ourselves have Border Collies,” Turner said. “But coming out to the demonstration there’s going to be everything from Papillons all the way up to Weimaraners. There is going to be Sheep Dog, a Mudi, some Australian Shepherds and Shelties.”
The agility canines will be showing their stuff at a variety of times Saturday. They’ll embrace the down time between demos so they can approach each new demonstration with renewed vigor.
“I think the dogs love it,” Turner said of the four-legged performers. “They can’t really say, ‘I don’t want to do this today.’ But they work for treats so I think they’re pretty happy doing it.”
Refreshments will be available for purchase at Dog Days including a vegetarian chili with proceeds supporting the ongoing work of the High Country SPCA.
Everybody is welcome to the event, pet owners and non-owners alike.
“All we ask is that there be no grumpy dogs and no grumpy people,” Dobbyn explained.
Anyone interested in being a vendor at Turner Valley Dog Days can call Cheryle Dobbyn at 403-933-5186 or Paulette at 403-558-2234.
