Bark in the Park

While down in the San Francisco Bay Area visiting family an interesting opportunity arose which we decided to take advantage of. The Oakland A’s baseball team holds a yearly “Bark in the Park” day where dogs are allowed in and you get to take them onto the field before the game and then watch a baseball game with your pooch.

Of course, with thousands of dogs and crowds of strangers there are some hurdles we needed to go through before we could get into the park. The first hurdle starts a couple of weeks in advance as we needed to get her Vet certificate of doggie vaccinations to the ticket office before they would sell to us. She’s all up-to-date with her shots so that was no problem. On the day of the game we printed out our tickets and made it to the game on time only to find a line of everyone with dogs stretching out and half way around the coliseum. This was the line to check that we had tickets as well as a copy of our vaccination paperwork. Sadly there was two people doing this check and, literally, about 10,000 dogs who needed their paperwork checked. After about an hour an a half in that line we made it through the gauntlet and were allowed down onto the field.

We got excited until we found that the “outfield walk” was nothing but a highly regimented, stay on the dirt track at the wall, no stopping to take pictures or get on the outfield grass, one minutes walk in one gate and out the next. Literally, we were on the field for about one minute then back up the stairs to a small area where Nylabone, Avoderm and a few other sponsors were handing out some free samples and other little dog-related things. A few food and treat samples later and I put Willow’s green A’s bandana on.

Willow in her green A's bandana
Willow in her A’s bandana

Then up into the upper deck area where all the dogs and their humans were relegated to and went to find our seats. I don’t remember who the A’s were playing or even if they won but we had a pretty good time in the company of lots of other like-minded dog lovers.

Willow sitting on some girl's lap at Bark in the Park
If she fits, she sits. Making friends one lap at a time.

All-in-all an interesting time taking Willow into an area normally off-limits to her. While it all worked out in the end it was a bit more of a pain in the butt than we were expecting and the crowds and bustle made it a one time adventure for us.

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