We walked forward, along with the thousands of other dogs and their people. My youngest packmate, 142-month-old James, said that we were doing a fundraiser, Strut Your Mutt, to help end animal cruelty and that this money would go to the SPCA, a non-profit organization that seizes animals that were treated cruelly and let other people adopt them. I didn’t know what this SPCA thing was, but what it was doing sounded good.

All of the scent trails confused me, so I followed the freshest one. I found another dog, slightly smaller than I was, and greeted it (by sniffing its butt). Its name was Kerry. I repeated this many times, with some people but mostly dogs. I remembered Lucy, Adam, Bob, Jerry, Max, and Bella. There were plenty more, but I forgot their names. One of my sweet leather shoes fell off a couple times. Darn that crooked paw! I was offered water once, but it was hard to lap up because the sides of the container were so close together. I was getting really hot and tired when we walked under the thin tunnel thing. However, it wasn’t for about forty-five minutes until we got into a cool car. When we got back home, I was exhausted, but I was happy. Strut Your Mutt was really fun!

We raised nearly $200 to help!

Thank you so much to:

• Motorcycle Grandma and Grandpa
• Laura Griest
• Heather Welch-Westfall
• Laura Berger
• And my mom, of course!