Local Kennel Club celebrates Festival of the Dog with Blacksburg Community

B, B, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong. This is Festival of the Dog, an event that the New River Valley Kennel Club puts on every year to help bring the community out, showcase our love for dogs. We're showing some of the AKC demos. We have some of our vendors out here, local Blacksburg dog related businesses have come out. Some food trucks. We look forward to playing some games and giving out some prizes later. I think it's a great opportunity for the community to come together and showcase what skills their dogs have and see what other opportunities there are for businesses and network with other dog owners here in the area. My name is Christy, and this is my dog, River. I'm Dawn, and this is Silas. I came out to see some cool dogs and to see what sort of booths were out here. And I just like to take him to as many dog friendly things as possible. It's really fun to just train your dog and to see what they can learn. I think dogs are a lot smarter than we give them credit for being most of the time. And it's just really rewarding to see them learning and growing and They can do a lot more than we even realize sometimes, so when you've got a dog that is able to do this, they also make really good ambassadors, especially for kids, kids that are a little wary of dogs. When you've got ones that can be relatively calm with them, it can really help. I'm Chri Bliss, and I work at the rodante Do pool in the fiscal Rehabilitation department. And I'm just out here to kind of promote the Fiscal Rehabilitation Center, but also just promote general wellness in dogs. I think a lot of people don't realize that, you can do more with your dogs than just taking them on walks. And, you know, a walk for 15 minutes sniffing around is great for mental stimulation, but it's also really good for just the human animal bond. You know, that's why we can use dogs for therapy work and service work and, you know, emotional support and anything else you can think of because they just they have an innate sense of being able to help humans.