www.petfairs.com
April 18, 2009

Saturday morning we gathered up two our canine children, Jake and Clyde, and headed off for the Expo Center to go to the Northwest Pet and Companion Fair.

The first thing to remember when you go to the Expo Center is that the facility charges for parking and there aren’t any good places to park nearby for free. If you want to avoid parking charges, take Tri-Met (not an option with two large dogs). Otherwise the Expo Center offers a discount for carpools of three or more (unfortunately they do not count dogs in that number), so gather a crowd to save money on parking.

There were coupons available from the Northwest Pet and Companion Fair web-site at www.petfairs.com for $2 off adult admissions, so we were able to save $4 on admission for the two of us adults. The dogs cost a can of food for the local food bank each (or you could pay $1 each).

As soon as we walked in the door, we were handed a goody bag with some information and odds and ends. We entered in a prize giveaway with the Humane Society and walked away with a Pet First Aid kit for our car. Bring lots of spare change and small bills to donate to the many deserving rescues and shelters at the Fair! There are also vendors selling and sampling goods. We stocked up on samples of many dog foods and came home with a pretty full goody bag.

On top of all of the stuff we hauled home from the Fair for free, we entered in several drawings. In the next couple of days we received calls informing us that we had won tickets to see “Bark in the Park” at PGE Park (http://dovelewis.org/events/run_for_dove.aspx) and a air filter which will be delivered to our house next week.

While the event is called the Northwest Pet and Companion Fair, the Northwest Dog Fair might have been a more accurate title. We saw more dogs in one day than we might see in the rest of the year combined. There were shelter dogs available for adoption, dogs at the event for presentations and many, many dogs there just to visit the fair. Other canine attractions included a herding dog presentation where you could test your own dogs herding skills for a small fee, a pool with a diving board that dogs played fetch off of and an agility coarse. Jake and Clyde were beside themselves with excitement from the moment they caught sight of all the dogs. They were so excited, that Jake, a Labrador who normally eats everything offered, wouldn’t eat any of the tasty treats offered by many of the vendors.

While there were not as many, there were other animals besides dogs at the Fair as well. There were ferrets at the booth for the ferret rescue, cats at some of the shelter booths and there was a really cool exotic animal display with reptiles, amphibians and some very unusual mammals.

Overall the Northwest Pet and Companion Fair was a load of fun for all of us. The dogs, of course, loved the Fair. We saw lots of families at the event with children and everyone was having a great time. The children enjoyed seeing all of the dogs and other animals. The Fair also had an inflatable playground with a slide for the children to use for a small fee. We know how much children love inflatable playgrounds from our experience at Inflatable Kingdom, and they enjoyed playing at the Pet Fair as well.

Check out the Northwest Pet and Companion Fair next year. Dates have not been announced on the web-site yet, but we will let you know on our web-site as soon as we have them.

HL

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