Although I’ve lived the majority of my life in Indiana, I’ve never attended nor visited the famous raceway in Indianapolis, home of the Indy 500 and the NASCAR Brickyard 400. In fact, although I do go to Indianapolis fairly often, I didn’t really even know on what side of town the track could be found. That changed when fellow dog mom, Lisa, suggested we attend the Indy Mutt Strut which is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

Billed as The Greatest Spectacle in Dog Walking, it promised to be a pretty cool event (over 7000 humans and 6000 pets attended in 2014 in support of the Indianapolis Humane Society)but the dilemma was that Ray is my usual “event” dog but I was pretty sure that walking on the 2.5 mile track would not be a go for him and if Lisa decided to bring Clyde, we would probably have to drive separately as Ray and Clyde haven’t yet met and that wouldn’t be any fun. I could bring Julius, since he and Clyde are besties, but I just felt that a 2 hour car ride might not be the greatest idea for Julius who sometimes gets car sick. We then talked about going dog-less, but that idea just made me feel sad. In the end, I decided to bring Titan, who is adoptable through the Fort Wayne Pit Bull Coalition and Lisa brought Clyde.

Lisa and Clyde met me at my house and we headed down to Titan’s foster. The plan was to walk them a bit and gauge reactions and if it was a no-go then Titan would stay home but fortunately they clicked well enough and off we went.

Titan is just a year old and all puppy. He takes a significant amount of time to settle, so a very short distance into the trip Lisa decided to sit in the jump seat directly behind me in the Pittie Van and kept the two adolescent boys in check. Whenever he was told to lie down, Titan happily obliged by flopping down and offering an invitation to rub his belly and after only 80 miles on the road, he (and everyone else) settled in for a power nap.

Since we had had Titan out at Pet Expo, we knew he was solid with other dogs and Saturday proved to be no different. The venue looked very inviting and we were offered complimentary poop bags before going to the registration tables. (Who else but dog moms get excited over free poop bags?)

After registration we wandered around the booths collecting freebies and occasionally getting wet from the persistent rain before deciding to try walking around the famous track. We ended up walking an embarrassingly short distance before deciding that 2.5 miles in the rain was not a lot of fun so we did a bit more shopping before heading back home.

Back at the Pittie van, Clyde claimed the spot in the very back and hid behind the jump seat in an effort to proclaim that he didn’t appreciate being trapped in a moving box with a toddler, tortured by walking in the rain, then hustled (wet) back into the box with a (wet) toddler.

Fortunately the drive home was uneventful and we dropped Titan and off at his Foster home and left him with a new leash and all of the doggie treats we had collected to share with his foster sister.

If you would like more information about Titan, please visit the Fort Wayne Pit Bull Coalition’s website or Facebook page.