My Little Pet Star

Now that my business was dog training, I started looking for ways to keep myself highly visible in the dog lover community. I watched our local newspaper for events that I could attend with Hardy, and one day I found one that sounded fun. A new health food chain was opening one of its stores in a nearby town and they were advertising a pet trick competition to be held at their grand opening celebration during the weekend. I marked my calendar and began practicing tricks with Hardy for the competition.

While I knew we weren’t going to win any major awards, I surmised that our being in the event might provide exposure of my talented pet, which I needed for my business. I started watching shows like Pet Star on television to get ideas. Pet Star quickly became one of my favorites, as I watched how the contestants would either succeed or fail in their endeavors to show off their pets. After watching, I would go outside and practice the better tricks with Hardy.

Each day we would practice our old standard: the “jump through my arms” trick, since Hardy enjoyed jumping so much. By now, I had decided to add several new tricks to the mix. I opted to create a little routine to keep things predictable. I knew we would be under pressure to perform, and we had never done that in front of a crowd, so I thought a routine would help.

By the time I was finished putting our routine together, there were about six tricks we would perform in succession. We began with Hardy sitting pretty in the center, barking hello to the audience. Next I had Hardy give a high five to show he was ready to perform. After that he would follow me around in a small circle off leash and I would put him some distance away from me in a sit/stay. For the grand finale, I would call him to run towards me and he would jump through my encircled arms, coming back to stand beside me. Then I would tell him to take a bow, and we would bow together as he dropped down into a play bow.

When the performance day came, we were well prepared and excited. There was a small crowd of people around the outside of the store meandering around, tasting healthy food samples from different vendors, generally enjoying the day wandering. The place had a farmers market type of feel, and there were children getting their faces painted as well as people coming and going from shopping inside the new store. I saw dogs gathering with their owners off to the side corner, so I went over and queried about the dog trick competition.

In short order, I had successfully entered and discovered that there were at least a dozen other contestants in the competition. This made me a little nervous, but I was excited to try out our cute little act, confident that we would at least entertain our audience. I took Hardy aside and worked with him a little, practicing his sit/stay, high five, and play bow. Children who were nearby loved the high five part in particular. I tried to keep things low key, discovering that Hardy’s cuteness alone was causing attention.

Finally it was time to perform. The master of ceremonies called all of the pet trick competitors to the center of the parking lot. Someone had partitioned off an oval ring for us to parade our dogs around, which we simply fell into doing without question. People gathered around the ring pointing to the dogs, remarking about them to each other. Anticipation was growing both inside and outside of the ring. I could feel the nervousness from all directions – except from Hardy. He was prancing around like a little animal celebrity!

It took about an hour from start to finish for the contest to unfold. Hardy and I were up sometime during the middle of the pack, but we performed our routine perfectly. The children were particularly enchanted with Hardy’s performance, the crowd cheering loudly when Hardy jumped through my encircled arms. It was a delight watching him perform with such confidence. It wasn’t a surprise to me that we won the competition with flying colors.