The Mighty Texas Dog Walk

The Mighty Texas Dog Walk is an annual event in Austin that is a major fundraiser for Service Dogs Inc. (formerly Texas Hearing and Service Dogs), an organization that rescues shelter dogs and trains them as service dogs. I volunteered for this organization for a few months before I got Morey and like to support them when I can. It has always sounded like fun and this year I was excited to be able to participate. The Walk started at 9am so I did have to give up some precious weekend sleeping in time, but it was definitely worth it!

Morey can get a little overexcited when he sees dogs in a non-working setting so I was a little concerned about how he would do around hundreds of other dogs. He's great with other dogs when he is working and he is great when he is off leash and able to run around with them, but managing him while he is "off duty" and on a leash can be a challenge. As we approached the start of the Walk and began to encounter other dogs Morey began to get a bit boisterous. He refocused on me when asked but did a lot of pulling and whining. When we walked past a chocolate lab Morey made a playful lunge for the other dog and I mistakenly didn't let go of the leash. Thankfully I stayed upright and Morey was sufficiently startled into paying more attention to me. When I saw some dogs playing off leash in the grassy area I decided to let Morey join them. From past experience I knew that if he could get his dog greetings out of the way he would be fine the rest of the event.

I released Morey after asking him to sit and give me eye contact. He looked like he had been shot from a cannon as he launched himself toward the other dogs, barking and running and looking like a goofball. Most of the dogs just tolerated him but when a probably six month old lab puppy joined the mix Morey got a taste of his own medicine and found that being jumped on and barked at isn't all that fun. After Morey made several huge laps, sniffed some dogs and peed on several trees he was ready to be civilized again and we made our way to the start of the Walk.



The course was different this year because of some construction in the park area. The "Walk" was a half mile course and people were encouraged to take multiple laps. Morey and I did two laps and enjoyed seeing dogs of every shape, size and color. There were some people who had dressed their dogs up or even dyed their fur so there literally were dogs of every color.




We made it to the finish line (twice actually!)

Morey carrying our "bib" for the Walk

Although the weather was beautiful, there was the potential for it to be very hot and so there were lots of bowls of water and wading pools set up around the course. Morey was pretty excited to see so much water and he took advantage of both the pools and the bowls of water!

After the Walk there was an expo of sorts with lots of sponsor booths and events going on. This was all inside the Palmer Events Center and so there were crowds of people and dogs in fairly close quarters. Luckily, a lot of dogs had worn themselves out already and everyone was pretty well behaved. Morey and I wandered past a few booths and collected some freebies.

A tradition at the Mighty Texas Dog Walk is to try to set or break a world record. Past records have included most dogs wearing the same bandana, most dogs sitting at the same time and biggest ball of dog hair. That record was set two years ago with a ball of dog hair weighing more than 200 lbs! That's a lot of dog hair! They were trying to beat that record this year and so they had the giant ball, along with brushes that you could use to brush your dog and contribute the hair to the ball. Morey participated in this but despite the amount of fur that he sheds, he didn't actually contribute that much to this cause. I guess he wanted to save it all for our floors at home!

They had an animal actor "talent scout" at the event and so Morey had his picture taken and registered to be "discovered". Since he already has a full time job he could only do a side gig here or there, but since he is cute/handsome and smart I figure he might have a chance of making it big. There were several dogs there who had recently appeared in movies or commercials and Morey was a little starstruck.

 

When we got home, I went through all of the freebies that we had collected over the course of the morning. Morey is pretty much set with dog bowls, poop bags and treats for the next several months!

 

After all the excitement of the morning, my "mighty dog" was all worn out and had to recover with an afternoon nap!