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Community Day

Moviedust

Well-known member
Once a year, our city has Community Day, where all the service and non-profits have booths/tables set up at the local mall. Our kennel club always has a table, so Cedar, Willow, and I went to do our part.

The awesome news is that Willow was THE socialite. she was even more social that Cedar!! What's even more shocking, is that she LOVES toddlers! I didnt get it, honestly, but whenever there was a 1-3 year old around, Willow beelined it over. She didnt jump, either. She politely sat in front of the kid and waited for the squeelers, criers, gigglers, whatever to pay attention to her. Cedar is more reserved with kids, so seeing Willow seek out kids was interesting!

The not-so-awesome news was that we were scarily popular. "What kind of dog is that?" came at me so often, that I was tempted to start lying. People wanted to know if the dogs were for sale or adoption (there were several humane societies there with adoptable dogs). I was concerned that people would be going out and buying them in petstores or from backyard breeders. I kept telling people that Willow was a mill rescue, so that I could explain about puppy mills and responsible breeding, etc.

At one point, this man came up and asked what kind of dogs they were, and when I said cavaliers he got all excited and said, "We just got one of those last week!!" So, I carefully asked him: "Have you heard about the health issues of the breed?" When he answered no, I knew I was dealing with a guy who just bought a backyard bred dog. Sooooo...... I started talking about MVD and SM. He hadnt heard of either, and after a minute he phoned his wife (who was shopping) to come by to see the girls. I explained what I could, told them about our club puppy class, and gave him a reference to cavaliertalk.com . (If you're reading this, Hello!!! Thanks for looking up more info about your dog!) I felt badly about telling this family all the bad stuff, but everyone who gets a cavalier needs to know what can happen, especially if the breeding is questionable. Hopefully, he'll find a puppy class (his pup is only 9 weeks old) and read up on the breed, just in case.

Needless to say, the girls were pretty tired after their big day of meeting and greeting. Cedar got to the point where she backed away from people wanting to pet, so we knew it was time to go home. Willow was still willing to run up to people, but if I held her she was tempted to nap. So we said our goodbyes, and came home.

Hopefully, we educated people more than we tempted them to get a cav from an undesireable source. hopefully!
 
Wonderful story Cindy. Willow certainly proves that with love the heart of the cavalier just shines right through no matter what horrid things have happened in its early life by the hands of less then perfect humans.
 
Sounds like you had a great day Cindy. And good for all three of you for being ambassadors. I think the more people know the better. And who better to learn from than someone who has one.
 
Sounds like a great day for Willow and Cedar. Im glad you were able to educate someone about the breed and hopefully they will pass the info on so more and more people are aware and slowly stop mills and backyard breeding
 
The same thing happened to me when I took the "kids" to get their pic taken with Santa... Three kids and an grandma all said they wanted one for Christmas... I was probably the least favorite person in line... LOL
"And how much do these cost?" One of the Dads said... Needless to say, that was the end of conversation... LOL
 
a great ambassador

Thanks for being such a great ambassador for the breed.. If everyone does a little-- a lot gets done! For the love of cavaliers!!
 
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