Barkus 2008

The theme of this year's Barkus parade, the only dog friendly mardi gras event, was "Indiana Bones and the Raiders of the Lost Bark". Jeff insisted that our dogs should participate in the doggie fun, in spite of their (well, really just Sake's) poor leash manners. I decided not to argue the point... after all, one has to pick her battles.

So Jeff dressed Sake up in my belly dancer costume, and Baxter in his fleece coat, loaded the mardi gras beads on both of them, and off to the parade we went.

Baxter did pretty well, and Sake was doing okay for the most part. We almost made it through the parade without incident .... almost.

As the end of the parade approached, Sake was laying down, taking in the sights, behaving surprisingly well, when a large chocolate lab in the parade took one look at her and charged, barking and growling. Well, being the alpha dog that she is, Sake takes that attitude from no one. So she stands up and lunges right back, growling her best 'german shepard' growl.

Before we knew it, her gentle leader collar snapped, leaving Jeff standing there stupidly holding onto a leash with no dog attached with a puzzled look on his face.

As Sake charged through the parade after the evil chocolate lab, I followed, dragging Baxter behind me. I tried to grab Sake's collar, but came up with only beads, which broke and flew in every direction. So I finally got hold of her collar, and dragged both her and Baxter back through the parade with my head bowed in embarassment, while listening to the mutterings of the nearby paraders saying "you should take that dog home" and "that dog's mean".

Now, those of you who know Sake know that she is NOT mean. She does fine at doggie daycare, and is just the sweetest, laid back dog around ... unless of course you are a dog walking past our house. But I couldn't help think they were right after what had just happened. Nevermind that it wasn't really her fault that the lab came after her, and it wasn't her fault that the collar snapped, but none the less, home we went, with tensions high. And on the way, Jeff admitted that perhaps from now on we should enjoy the Barkus Parade without our dogs.