Today was the Annual Dog Walk for Sarge’s Animal Rescue Fund, the local all-breed rescue.  It is a great organization and we thoroughly enjoy going downtown for the walk and hanging out on the courthouse lawn after the event and socializing for a short period of time (the Herd gets way too restless to stay for long).

To get the Herd ready, we started out by going to Waterrock Knob and hiking the trail to the summit and back.  Then, and only then, did we feel like the Herd was close to being ready to be in the mix of a couple of hundred other dogs.  We got to the Courthouse lawn around 9:30, picked a spot somewhat out of the center of things, and settled in.  

Qannik and Cheoah talked non-stop – a couple of very excited dogs.  Very fitting since they are the two that came to us via Sarge’s.  Qannik was pulled straight from the Haywood Animal Shelter after we stopped at Sarge’s to pick up our dog walk form last year and they asked if we would go make sure he was ok before they pulled him the following week (yes, I fell for that one).  Cheoah was via a volunteer who called us and let us know of her availability, though they had not become involved yet.

Here is Cheoah sporting her Sarge’s bandana (with Rusty in the background):

Another shot of Cheoah watching all of the other dogs with GREAT interest:

Kodiak was very conflicted.  He didn’t know whether to watch all of the dogs in front of him:

or behind him:

Sorry I do not have any pictures of the parade itself.  Handling 3 Sibes each, we did not exactly have time to take pictures and keep them from devouring any of the little dogs surrounding us.  We decided, for the sake of community peace, to focus on keeping the Herd well behaved.