Sunday November 28th, Mylee and I ventured down to Winter “Woofstock” being held at the Direct Energy Centre right at Exhibition Place in Toronto. I was full of anticipation at the opportunity to spend time with some good friends, our dogs, in a dog loving environment. We had planned to take in some of the events, do a little shopping, take some pictures, and enjoy coming back to post a blog report on it. What could be better? Woofstock seemed like it would be a wonderful Event and we were all so excited.

Mylee and I arrived at Woofstock early Sunday afternoon. It was a complete mad house zoo and there were people and dogs absolutely everywhere. We paid our parking of $13.00 and then went in and paid our $10.00 entrance fee. Fairly high for an event of this type however I was still excited and figured I would be getting my money’s worth. I met up with Debbie, her wonderful human daughters, and her beautiful Cavalier Becky and we headed into the commotion. It soon became quickly apparent that this was going to be a crazy afternoon. There were *so* many people, and *so* many dogs that you barely could navigate the aisles without having people bumping into you, getting pushed, and the worst part – almost having your little dog repeatedly getting stepped on.

As we continued on we quickly came across the “VIP room” where you could pick up your “swag” bags if you had registered your dog prior to the event. Debbie and I have been twittering with @woofstock on twitter for several months and we both registered our dogs at the same time for the VIP list. The girl running the gate quickly told us that we were incorrect in our registrations and that none of our dogs were on her list. At this point I was already annoyed and said forget about it. Debbie however made her check three times before finding Becky on the list. No idea where Zo, Mylee, and Kodee ended up being.. for all we know they probably were on the list just like Becky was. Why advertise a VIP swag bag and make it that difficult? Definitely very unhappy already at this point and we had only been there approx 10-15minutes.

We ventured on in our travels and the day just went downhill from there. The facility was a disgusting mess. Who puts down purple carpets for a ton of dogs to poop on and then not be cleaned up properly? It stunk, it was not being maintained and quite honestly was a health hazard. There didn’t seem to be any well thought out planning on the setup as the aisles were tight together and not nearly enough room to maneuver with lots of people and dogs. There certainly was not many shopping bargains to be had, and absolutely no demonstrations going on. Overall I left Woofstock feeling completely ripped off, frustrated and annoyed that I had wasted a Sunday afternoon there.

I might be being a bit harsh however the Event was awful. As a former Special Event planner a lot of this stuff should just not happen. I will be sending Woofstock a letter as well. If they do this again next year I really hope that some very big improvements are put into place. As it stands now it will take me a lot to venture back to a Winter Woofstock and I will certainly not be encouraging anyone to go take in the “festivities”.

Mylee had a wonderful time and enjoyed all the attention she received. She helped me do a very minor amount of shopping as we picked out new Smoochy Poochy Harnesses for Zoey and Molly, some dehydrated sweet potato treats, and two tartar buster bones for Zo’s birthday present. The harnesses were not on any discount however we needed them as I love their construction and fit. The bones were slightly discounted, and the sweet potato treats were a not bad deal. Everything else was regular to overpriced. Here are some pictures I managed to take in the commotion.

Zo and I are off tonight to Waterloo to get her eyes CERF’d by an Ophthalmologist. ‘ll breath a sigh of relief as always when that is completed again for the year.