Pet Chat | Stephanie Stebbing

A word of thanks

As I am writing to meet this paper’s deadline, I am also up to my eyebrows in planning and coordinating PAW-Fest. By the time you read this, the event will have passed. I hope the weather was good, I hope you came and I hope you had fun. I also hope we can do it again next year!

One of the best parts of planning this event for me was having the opportunity to get to know the great people of our pet community a bit better. I look forward to focusing on them in future Pet Chat articles so you can get to know them better, too.

In the meantime, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the folks who came together to make this event work. The Port of Kingston started all of this by inviting us to plan an event at Mike Wallace Park. What would have been a small backyard party to celebrate our 10-year anniversary became something much more. A big thank you also to the Greater Kingston Chamber of Commerce for their sponsorship and support.

I would like to thank local dog trainers Shade Whitesel, Dianne Canafax and Noel Ritter for giving demonstrations of some of the work they do. These are three ladies who work hard and have dedicated their lives to improving the lives of dogs and their families in our community.

There are many people who devote their time and efforts to helping pets in our community by working with local pet rescues. Thanks to all those folks for coming to PAW-Fest to tell people about the work they do on animals’ behalf throughout the year.

I am grateful to all the local businesses set up booths at PAW-Fest. Their energy, creativity and willingness to take a day away from their regular business to meet more of the folks of Kingston is much appreciated.

We had several volunteers who came to PAW-Fest and devoted their time to help the event run smoothly. Thank you! Then there is my staff who not only came in their day off to work at PAW-Fest, but have also worked double time at the pet shop to keep things flowing while I was busy planning PAW-Fest. Thank you, thank you!!

Most of all I want to say a huge THANK-YOU to the fine folks of Kingston. All of our fine businesses, demonstrations, games and nice people in tents are nothing without you coming to give life to our party. If you didn’t make it I hope you will be able to join us next year. And on behalf of everyone at PAW-Fest, I’d like to thank you for your support of our local businesses throughout the year.

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