COSHOCTON − A day to honor man's best friend is upcoming with the Coshocton Dog Fest from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 17, at Coshocton Lake Park, 23253 Ohio 83.
The event will be at the same time of the second annual Roscoe Village Food Truck Festival with a shuttle between the two venues offered by the Coshocton County Coordinated Transportation Agency. The village will host multiple food trucks, homemade and craft food item vendors, games and crafts for the kids, and local musical acts. The Living History Tour will be available for those wanting to learn the village’s history and the village shops will be open for business.
The inaugural dog festival will feature a variety of vendors, lure course for pooches to attempt, a cooling tent staffed by veterinarians and demonstrations from Ultimate Air Dogs and Performance Dogs of Ohio. Attendees are welcome to bring their dogs, but they should be friendly with other dogs and people, and kept on a leash.
The festival is organized by Brad and Cathy Fuller of Good Boy Bakery , a local homemade dog treat and pet item store in Roscoe Village. Proceeds will benefit the Coshocton County Animal Shelter.
"Dogs are kids now for some people. There are some people who have chosen not to have human children and they have four-legged children, cats too," Brad said. "Dogs are a huge part of life and more and more stores and other places are dog friendly."
Ultimate Air Dogs
Ultimate Air Dogs is a dock diving competition. The organization was founded in 2005 by former Major League Baseball pitcher Milt Wilcox. There will also be an opportunity for those who bring their dogs to try the dock diving. Fuller said once the dog fest is more established, they want to become an official dog diving competition where canines can earn points.
Milt played 16 years with stints for the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians), Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, Seattle Mariners and Detroit Tigers. He won the World Series with the Tigers in 1984. Milt's son, Brian Wilcox, will be in Coshocton for the dog festival.
"I've always been a kind of guy to go out and create my own jobs. I create my own things I like to do. I figure if I like to do them, other people like to do them," Milt said.
He had a black Labrador named Sparky Anderson, after the former manager of the Reds, who liked to jump off of docks. Milt caught dock diving one morning on ESPN and realized his dog could do that. He started competing from there and eventually formed his own business for competition and demonstration.
Ultimate Air Dogs does about 90 shows a year with their own pool and dock setup. National competition with about 400 dogs will be held in September in Nashville, Tennessee. Milt said the record set at nationals last year was 33 feet, 10 inches by a whippet-border collie mix from Baltimore, Maryland.
"What we try to do in areas like Coshocton is promote and people can bring their dogs out and try it. If your dog can swim, likes to chase toys and is an outgoing dog...you can see if your dog can do it," Milt said. "Your dog could be the next Ultimate Air Dogs champion."
Performance Dogs of Ohio
Performance Dogs of Ohio does a variety of disc and Frisbee catches with other agility stunts and tricks, along with crowd participation games. Wesley Ryan is the executive director of the organization that does shows for a variety of fairs, festivals and sporting events.
There will be two handlers and 10 dogs coming to Coshocton. Most of their dogs are border collies, Australian shepherds or mixes of the two. There's also a Corgi.
"Any high energy dogs. The kind of dogs nobody wants, we snatch up. They're still our pets first, but we're more inclined to know what kind of energy they need," Ryan said.
About eight year's ago, Ryan said his brother got involved in a toss and fetch league and then Ryan's son followed suit. It snowballed from there with Performance Dogs of Ohio forming as a side gig to show off what their dogs have learned. He said they use positive dog training, praising the good and ignoring the bad. Training sessions are 10 to 15 minutes each and focused on mastering a new skill, building on what was previously learned.
"Every time we do one of these shows, we get people excited about playing with their own dogs. It promotes the kind of bond you can have with difficult dogs. Through dog sports you can fix a lot of these issues. You get addicted to working with difficult dogs and turning them into great dogs," Ryan said.
They also use shows to promote animal rescues and responsible dog breeding. Some of the performance dogs were rescues. Ryan said just three months ago they got the OK for a rescue to start performing at shows after recovering from heart worm.
"I give the speech, 'it doesn't matter how you start, it matters how you finish.' We have some dogs that came from very hard upbringings," Ryan said.
For more information on the Coshocton Dog Festival, email coshoctondogfest@gmail.com or call 740-610-3544.
This article originally appeared on Coshocton Tribune: Upcoming dog festival includes stunts, tricks, diving competition at Lake Park
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