Paws In The Park: A PawS-ITive Experience
by Bandit Z. Beedle

Dogs drool, so what? Dogs know how to have fun, too! At least that's how me and my 200 or so best dog friends and their humans feel, which is why the Friends of Lighthouse Field "Paws In The Park" dog walk and rally was such a blast!

In fact, you would think that having dogs like me, and Maggie, and Gunnar and Tucker off leash at Lighthouse Field and Its Beach was THE most popular activity in Santa Cruz--if not the world--especially, from all the newspaper and TV reports!

Here's how the day went down:
Mom took me to Depot Park early in the afternoon. I didn't exactly know what to expect, but then I guess neither did the other dogs and humans. Well, we signed up and we got to wear really cool blue bandanas with paw prints handpainted on them! Woohoo--dressup!

Bob, who had paw prints on his shirt, must have been the alpha-human because he had a bull horn (although I didn't see any bulls). He got all 200+ humans chanting some off-leash rhymes and chants that Joe and Anne wrote. The next thing I new, me and my friends and our humans were promenading down West Cliff Drive.

hmmmm, now it was all starting to make sense, the day before, in our driveway ... the stenciling dog paws on the bandanas, shirts, jackets, anything. Dad joked that we should start an event called Burning Dawg. Anyway, I digress.

Back to West Cliff Drive -- we howled and walked, walked and howled all the way to the park. We were looking good! I saw so many of my pals, like Pooh and Gracie and her little bro, Cooper. There were some puppies and some dogs that had the same nickname: "Katrina-rescue." The buzz was that some of our older dog friends, like Java and Emily and Whimsy, were waiting for us at The Field (yippeee!). Mom said she was trying to get to there right at 4:00, that "magical hour," you know what I mean?

The rest was kind of blur, there were so many dogs in the park that I kinda forgot to listen to all the speechifying from Cibo's Dad, Maggie and Sadie's Mom, and all those big political huhas - though that City Councilman Ryan Coonerty's dog is pretty cute.

I did hear Santa Cruz "outgoing" Mayor, Cynthia Mathews, say the city will do everything they can to support us. And new "incoming" Mayor, Emily Reilly, said we were just the kind of community that makes Santa Cruz so "uber-cool" (my word, not hers). (By the way, she sure can bake some great cookies, too bad their just for humans; of course, she keeps water for us dogsters on her bakery deck!)

When FOLFer-endorsed newbie councilwoman Lynn Robinson showed up , it was all good, really good. Like you know what I mean, when Mom and Dad are on the same page, the sun is shining, there's a bottomless pocketful of doggy cookies, and I'm not harnessed up with my stupid brother Cuba.

And you know, when that Councilman with the nice suit Tony Madrigal put the bandana around his own neck and a FOLF bumper sticker in his pocket, well it's a dog gone good world, that's for sure.

The humans had another couple of chants, more clapping and hugging, and cookies for everyone! There was lots of good fun happening at Lighthouse Field. Roxie made a love connection with my brother Cuba; ol' Bub held court in the middle of the path. Laura's little black dogs, Timmy, Ruby and Otterpup (is that really a name?), were there, too.

Like I said, sometimes life is somehow better when you see yourself on the TV news , it was sure my feel good story of the day. And the next day, there were a bunch of those nice news-people that wrote articles about me...ok...about us! Seemed like things would be better come November 2007, and we'd still have those magical hours off leash to look forward to.

My Mom says for me to thank all the wonderful volunteers who helped make Paws in the Park such a super success!


Yep, that's me, Bandit posing with Mayor Emily Reilly, and Council members Tony Madrigal (Tony, I like that thumbs up!), Lynn Robinson, and Ryan Coonerty and a bunch of my FOLF friends who helped organize this most awesome day!


For more cool pictures, check out the Paws In the Park Photo Galleries!

updated 11/30/06