The Dog Bowl

About a week ago, April and I met in downtown Dallas for The Dog Bowl! It was held at the Cotton Bowl football stadium at Fair Park (where the State Fair is held every fall).

They basically block off all of the exits and make it one huge dog park - such a great idea! All dogs are allowed to be off-leash once inside the stadium. I took Maggie and April took one of her three dogs, Taylor (a boxer). Here's Maggie checking out the action!

And subsequent 'getting-to-know-you' ritual.....

I left Owen at home because I thought it would be IMPOSSIBLE to keep track of both dogs in that big of an area and also because Owen is a spaz in areas with a ton of stimulus like this. I didn't know how he would react. And the final reason is that ever since I introduced Owen to our family, he has demanded a lot of attention and I wanted to give Maggie a break where we could hang out just 'us girls' like we used to do. :)

Maggie got a cute new doggie scarf when we were there - she looked so cute!

Here we are - playing and having fun!


It was kind of weird how MANY wiener dogs were there - I swear, we saw one every couple seconds! So of course, I was in doggie heaven.

Here is April's boxer, Taylor. This lady was filling up one of the kiddie pools and he apparently was thirsty, so he took it upon himself to get a drink! So cute! They had a whole bunch of the kiddie pools all over the place and the dogs were playing in the water - I even saw a HUGE MASSIVE great dane trying to fit in one. :)

Maggie has a 'thing' about drinking out of strange water dishes.....she doesn't like to do it. So I always get concerned that she will get dehydrated. At the dog park, she won't drink out of their fountains, so I have to pay attention to how long we've been there and how hard she's playing.

At this event, they really didn't have water dishes that short/small dogs could get to, which I was disappointed by. They had tall buckets for the big dogs, and some dogs were drinking out of the kiddie pools, but Maggie didn't really have options. So I cupped my hand and poured my bottled water into it and she drank a little bit. I should've brought my travel water dish - dang!

This pic shows her getting a little hot and tired.....

She had a blast being off-leash and there were so many other dogs and people to explore! She even behaved so nicely - exploring, but still staying somewhat close to me. She liked to hide under the vendor's booths. :)

Her scarf was light green with different colored paws on it - adorable. And I also picked out one for Owen - it was blue with a design on it.

We had a fun girls day out and I was happy to let her get away from her brother for a while and get spoiled with lots of attention and love. By the end, she was exhausted and passed out as soon as we got in the car (and slept all the way back to Arlington). Success!