MINNEAPOLIS _ Last Friday at the Minneapolis Convention Center, dozens of dogs gathered to strut their stuff. No, this wasn't a debate among candidates for the Minneapolis City Council. These were actual dogs, canines, some 100 of them representing 47 sporting breeds.
The event was the Bird Dog Parade, kickoff to the Pheasant Fest and Quail Classic, the annual shindig sponsored by Pheasants Forever (PF), which was founded in 1982 in St. Paul and remains headquartered in the Twin Cities.
Next year, Sioux Falls will host the roving exhibition, as PF celebrates its 35th anniversary. That South Dakota city then also will be overrun by dogs that travel distances great and small to participate in the festival's Bird Dog Parade, a pooch party like no other, in which owners and their charges _ from Labradors to Slovakian Rough-Haired pointers _ preen for photographers and, especially, for one another.
Here are snippets of some who paraded proudly Friday morning.
