Dog Jog

First of all, this is my 100th blog post! Thanks to everyone for reading and encouraging me to keep putting nonsense and pictures of my dog on the internet.

Speaking of dogs, yesterday Andy and I did the "Dog Jog," which is a benefit for Friends of Pets, a local animal rescue organization.  We saw a commercial for it on the news and signed up without knowing much about it.  We got totally sucked in by the fact that it was happening less than a mile from our house at Andy's old high school.

When we first got to the school, it didn't look like much was going on, but we headed up to the parking lot and it was a full on dog party!

Our first stop was the free bandanas.  We tried to find one that was somewhat masculine, which was difficult.  Ripley didn't mind.

They set up kiddie pools all over the place.  Ripley only wanted to drink from them, but some dogs hopped right in:

And so did a couple of babies:

There were all kinds of dogs there.  Some even had costumes:

Most of the dogs were pretty playful:

Some looked like horses:

Some were tiny:

They even had a kissing booth!

After we checked out all the booths and got our goodie bag (which was full of dog treats), we headed down to the field to start the race.  Andy and I decided to do the 5k and figured Ripley would probably get worn out fairly soon.  Most people just did the one mile walk.

Here's a picture of everyone parading down the hill before the race:

These were the runners.  I didn't get pictures of the crowd that was walking, but picture much smaller dogs and much larger people (for the most part...I ran next to a toy poodle for most of the race, which might say something about my current fitness level).

That little black dog ran the whole thing.  I was proud of him.

Then - the race! I didn't take any pictures because as soon as they let us start running, Ripley tore off like a bat out of hell and he and Andy sprinted through the whole course.  I ran faster than I normally would have but I never caught up to them.  I think Andy and Ripley finished in the top 5 (so much for it being too strenuous for him).  The race wasn't very official - we didn't have numbers or anything and there wasn't even a clock running.  A woman who ran up with Andy said the course was only 2.5 miles according to her pedometer, which isn't even a whole 5k.  Still, it was a good workout.

After the race, we watched some people do a flyball demonstration, which, as far as I can tell, is an activity you do with your dog if your dog is totally crazy.  Ripley would hate flyball.

Part of the demonstration was showing that any dog can do it, including this tiny yorkie:

Most of the dogs doing flyball were border collies, which fits in pretty well with my theory about crazy dogs:

All in all, it was a really fun event.  We donated some money to a good cause and we got a little exercise.  I think we'll make this an annual event!