Nonimmigrant: Dog's dinner

Saturday 11 June 2016

Dog's dinner

I'm a big animal lover. Beefburgers, sausages-and-mash, lamb curry - we'd have none of these if it weren't for our furry friends, so when Hannah told me that Chevron was sponsoring a table at a dinner for animal enthusiasts I jumped at the chance. Besides, this wasn't my first time at something like this - at the ARF dinner some years ago I came away with my father's favourite photo of me. Seriously! He's got it in a frame in the house.

With great glee and some yapping we descended on the Washington Hilton with 1,000 other guests and 600+ dogs for the annual Bark Ball. This was certainly not an event for the allergic. Nor was it quite the event I had anticipated, which I discovered when reading that the dinner menu was completely vegan. The whole thing is run by The Humane Society who specialise in not eating tasty things, although there was some irony in seeing so many dogs dressed "humanely" in leotards and dinner jackets.

It was a fabulous evening nonetheless; we sat on the table next to ex-presidential candidate Bob Dole (and his three dogs), and although much of the food was something called "salad" there was a rather good banana split for dessert. Then - as happens at these things - there was an auction and pledge drive. Incredibly, many people are happy to throw thousands of dollars at their four-legged friends' welfare, and even attribute human characteristics like "love" and "loyalty" to them! Who knew? I sat there contemplating why people love animals more than they love other people, sipping a gin-and-tonic and patting the head of a Boston Terrier that was wearing a tutu. Maybe it's because I'm a cat person...