In a word: Wow. I've wanted a Dog Lovers Show in Brisbane for so many years now, since the first one was run in Melbourne. Mainly because I am ever so slightly dog obsessed.. Never did I'm imagine I would have a stall of my very own! When I heard it was coming to Brisbane, I knew I just had to attend. Being the biggest dog related show ever to come to Brisbane, I wanted to get it right. It took 5 months of planning and preparation, and leading up to the Dog Lovers Show I was all sorts of nervous and excited. After going in early on Friday morning to set up my stand, I returned home to bake some treats! About 200 biscuits for pups and their people were baked in the end. After dusting the flour off my hands, I finally had everything for my stall ready to go.(Quality tested of course, by me and my "helpful" assistants.)
All in all, I was quite happy with how it turned out!
A big thanks to my mum, Sharyn, who was there in my stall almost as long as I was, which allowed me to go eat lunch each day. We met a whole heap of people - guests and exhibitors- and plenty of dogs. I am so excited to work with everyone who booked a session over the weekend. My first shoot from the show is with Empower Assistance Dogs, an amazing not for profit who provide professionally trained and government certified guide, hearing and assistance dogs. They are the first organisation that is government certified to train all three types of service dogs – guide, hearing and assistance dogs. I am very excited to be working with them.
Each day on my lunch break, I enjoyed the fun the show had to offer. I train my dogs in dog agility, so it was quite an honour to see my friends and their dogs from my very own agility club, Brisbane Agility Dog Club, put on quite a show during the weave pole performances in the Royal Canin arena. Its a very busy environment, more so than an agility trial, so these dogs did absolutely brilliant work.
Video by Tony Redwood
All in all, The Dog Lovers Show was an absolute blast, and we hope to do it again, bigger and better in 2018! Keep an eye on Facebook and the blog for sneak peaks from some of our DLS sessions.