Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Wienerschnitzel Wiener Nationals

This past weekend Walt participated in his SECOND race ever - the Wienerschnitzel Wiener Races! [His first race was a 1 mile run this past December, The Santa Mile with Santa's Little Helpers (meaning doggies could run with their owners). Although he has short legs, he still came in TENTH PLACE overall and seemed to enjoy himself.]

Even though we rescued Walt last spring, we were out of town for the Wiener Dog Races last year, so this was the first year we could go to the races WITH A WIENER! (Yup, I have gone MANY years without a pup of my own...)


Saturday morning we jumped in the car around 7:30am and headed south to Qualcomm Stadium (where the Chargers play). We hadn't pre-registered, so we wanted to be there around the time registration opened (which was at 8am, with the first races starting at 9am). There were already quite a few folks (and their dachshunds) at the Rugby field when we arrived. We were able to sign up pretty quickly, pay our $10, and walk around a bit.





Since we had time to kill (and one of our friend's let us borrow his Go Pro), we decided to have some fun and take a couple videos and photos to document the event. Ry ran around the open field for a bit with Walt and the Go Pro and then had me run towards him so he could grab a couple stills on our camera.









Before we knew it, it was time to RACE! [If you have never been to a Wiener Dog Race before, you might need a little clarification. So although it is a "race" (the fastest 16 based on time go to the Del Mar Race Track for a race at the end of August and then the winner actually attends the Holiday Bowl at the end of December), most of the dogs don't realize it. Many of the dogs don't make it down to the finish line and end up just sniffing around on the "track" or chasing other dogs.] We weren't sure what to expect with Walt, but knew it would be fun!

He actually did EXTREMELY well! The first time he didn't really go down to Ryan until they "called the race" and I started walking down towards the end. The second time around he did really great and actually ran out of the starting block once they lifted the gate and finished strong! The last time he did it, he thought "defense is the best offense" and instead of running down to me, he decided to throw up a block for the other dog so neither could finish very quickly... Strategy, huh?!

[This is the video of his "strongest" race.]



After Walt raced those three times, we decided we would head home because it was awfully toasty out (even though it was only 10:30am) and Walt was SPENT! On the way home Walt passed out before we even got back to the expressway ;) [And of course Ryan was out like a light too, but he wears his sunnies to hide the fact]


Ryan edited some of the Go Pro videos he took together for a fun little montage of Walt's day at the races. Hope you enjoy it... [It's about two and a half minutes, but I promise it is SOOOOOOO worth it!]



Oh yeah, and how can I forget?! Because Wienerschnitzel is the main sponsor, of course they had a hot dog truck on site and even had "K9 Dogs", so Ryan just HAD to get Walt one. You can see at the end of the above video Walt thoroughly enjoyed his hot dog... although Ryan called it cannibalism. And then Ryan had him wear a hot dog bun as a hat, since he wanted nothing to do with the plain bread.


Do you have a dog? Has he/she ever done a race before? 

5 comments:

The Silent Assassin said...

Very awesome Walt!!! Cheeeewhoooo!

Erin T said...

What an awesome day! Loved the video!

Becky Ginther said...

How cool is that! Go Walt!

Disney_Bride said...

Walt is a Racing ROCKSTAR! He gets it from his momma. Loved the vid. Aww... now I have to find a race like that for my puppy.

Scallywag said...

My SO and I were literally JUST talking about these, then I log on to bloglovin and guess what youve put up! Looks to be a lovely day!