membership and that covers the entire state. One year a few of us did aWow - 26-27 in one area is as many as the entire Lone Star BMDC
parade in my small town. We had a couple of carts I think and a bank
genorously donated small lollipops which we could throw at the kids (and
adults) along the parade route. Might I suggest if you do something like
that and you don't want to use carts, backpacks would work quite well for holding small candies to toss out.
Susan Ablon<<<
Only about 8 of these 27 Berners in our area are "members" of our regional INWBMDC or the Berner-L (2 are mine, 3 own Christie & Butch Leone, 2 own Jenny McCune, and 1 owns Lindsey Lindgren, the only ones on the Berner-L that I'm aware of). Most of the other 18 or so have no club affiliation, and I can't drum up any interest -- they're "just pets" and the families have no interest in Berner activities other than our local group. I tell 'ya, I had to do a number of illegal U-turns and hotrod chases in my car, and mad hoofing it to chase down a familiar-looking dog part hanging out of a car or walking down a street to find these dogs. Frequently someone would stop me to admire one of mine and ask me if I knew so-and-so, who also owned a Berner. A little detective work on my part rounded up this many.
So I'll bet there are a whole lot more Berners out there in your area than you know about through official Berner clubs only. I was pretty shocked myself to find so many just here in Bozeman, Montana. Maybe living here in 9 months of winter in the Rockies is a natural place for them and they're "multiplying"!!
As to parades -- Maddie did pull her cart during our annual Sweet Pea Parade in August, as part of our Intermountain Therapy Animals entry. In her cart was a little foo-foo dog, too "delicate" to walk the parade route on his own. Our whole therapy dog group was quite a hit, but Maddie was the star (IMHO). The SP parade police won't allow anyone to throw candy to the kids any more -- someone must have gotten hurt either by flying candy or the mad scramble of several kids trying to grab it. We did, however, toss dog biscuits to the bystanders with dogs! The only bystanders for the Christmas Stroll "parade" (I use that term loosely) are the adults who aren't with their kids in the mob following Santa, so throwing candy may draw those kids up to the front where we really don't want them -- we're trying to avoid having the dogs in a crowd while in carts or a "formation." Backpacks are a good alternative, though, if we find we can't protect them in carts.
Keep those ideas coming, please!
Vicky Whitney
Bozeman, Montana
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