Sunday marks the end of 'Dog Days of Summer' event in Colorado Springs – KRDO

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — Sunday was the final day of the inaugural ‘Dog Days of Summer’ event this weekend at the Norris Penrose Event Center.
Both dogs and their owners enjoyed a fun weekend full of education, training, exercise and nutrition. The active areas such as the flyball and agility course seemed to be the biggest draws to the event. Setting it apart from other pet expos.
“I have a two and a half year old lab mix so she loves going to things like this,” attendee Megan Baratta said. “I really liked taking her to the agility but she liked chasing the lure around and I had never done anything like that with her before so that was a lot of fun to watch. She loves to run. I love checking out new training opportunities and different things we can get her involved in.”
Megan said she would absolutely love to come back to this event. She and her dog Maverick enjoyed the information about nutrition, supplements and different foods. She also said Dog Days of Summer was unique from other pet expos she’d been to.
“I think it’s way more interactive, there’s more for her to do being able to run her around,” Baratta said. “She got her energy out so I could walk her around and do what I needed to do and talk to who I needed to talk to. I had never seen anything like that at a dog expo before.”
Julia Belmont is a flyball trainer and instructor who volunteered at the event.
“When they come back here and ask what flyball is I have a video I can show people,” Belmont said. “It’s an opportunity for me to walk them through the steps and do some training on site if it’s something they’re interested in. It’s an opportunity for people who haven’t seen flyball to see what it’s all about. It helps your dog build focus. I have a real nervous shelty and it was an opportunity for him to get more confidence.”
Jaedyn Mceaither and her pup Goose do agility, but just started flyball training at the event Saturday. She said her dog took to the sport very quickly.
“We started yesterday to get him used to it,” said Mceaither. “We used to do agility but he hasn’t been interested in it. We wanted to change it up for him so we started doing flyball. I think it’ll be fun for him and me to do it together and have something different to do. We used to have some friends that got us into agility and as we got more into the dog world we saw more dog things we could do. We saw flyball and thought he would like to do it because he loves to jump and get balls.”
Her advice for someone and their dog wanting to get into agility is to take it slow because it can be a lot of work, especially the ‘A frame’ and dog walk.
Natasha is a reporter for Good Morning Colorado during the week and weekends.
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