With all the excitement of my allergy problems, I totally forgot to tell you about my exciting trip to New York City to attend the Purina Better with Pets summit. Oh my dog, I learned a lot, and I can’t believe I haven’t shared with you the highlights before now (I guess you can say I truly was a bad dog … hehehe).
In November I boarded a plane and headed to the big apple to attend my third Purina Better with Pets summit. Any time Purina hosts an event it is always totally outstanding so I couldn’t wait! The theme of this year’s event was the emotional wellness and bond between people and pets. I know how important my rents are to me, so I was glad that Purina had decided to dig deeper into such an important topic.
The highlight of the morning was the panel discussions:
- An Evolving Relationship with Cats? I admit, I wasn’t too “oh my dog” about this topic. I like cats, but I wanted to hear about the canines. However, I kept an open mind and I learned a whole lot! Who knew that millennials are getting more cats than dogs as pets? On the panel they also had the owner of a very popular cat café. This totally baffled me as to why humans paid to go hang out with cats??? I thought this was very odd until Mom reminded me that when people want to go hang out with dogs they go to a dog park. It isn’t like there are cat parks around. I also learned that the café’s cats are up for adoption and many end up going home with new families that they hung out with at the café. Isn’t that awesome?
- Stress, Our Pets, and Us – I could really relate to this session because I was very stressed out at the event (more on that later – it was due to my allergies, not the event). I have written a separate article about this interesting panel that I will be publishing soon, but I can tell you that the speakers gave a lot of great tips on ways to release stress from our lives.
- Raising Kids and Pets – This was a great panel about how you can raise both kids and pets in the same house. This is an issue near and dear to my heart since so many of us Westies get surrendered because a new baby is on the way. It is important that there be more discussion and education on this so families will quit giving up their pets.
Closing out the summit, I saw Carole Radziwill from the Real Housewives of NYC. She is a dog person (I even tweeted her one time when I saw her pet sitting a Westie on the show). She brought her dog named Baby and told us about how her and her friends co-parent together.
There were all sorts of interactive sessions in the afternoon but unfortunately I didn’t get to see very many of them. My allergies were really flaring up so I wasn’t myself and didn’t feel well at all. Luckily Mom found a nice hallway for us to hangout in.
I am so sad I missed out on some of the fun, but Mom said maybe I will get invited again next year and I will feel more up to it then. Other than not feeling well for the summit, I had an amazing experience in NYC and I learned a lot from all the great panels. Make sure to read part two – Purina Better with Pets Summit – Pets, Stress, and My Allergies as I share what I learned about stress and pets, and part three to hear about my adventures in the big apple!.
Your Pal,
Disclosure: Purina invited me to their “Better with Pets Summit.” This post, as well as the trip, was sponsored by Purina but all thoughts and opinions are my own.
