Every contestant will have an opportunity to strut onto the stage with their pooch. We will be going in reverse order of fundraising, with the sixteenth dog (our social media star) going first and our top fundraiser (shout out to Knox!) going last. Feel free to bring any flare, tricks, or dance moves you want for your walk. Dogs will be kept accompanied on leash the whole time during the mutt strut. Once all sixteen dogs have strutted, we will set out sixteen jars, one with each dog’s name. The audience will be given a coin each to vote for their dog of choice. The top eight vote-receiving dogs will move onto the next round.

We will have the remaining eight contestants line up, again with the highest fundraiser going last. There will be a wooden board set up on the stage and each contestant will be given three filled “poop bags” (no actual poop will be used!) to toss at the board, aiming for various holes that are worth different amounts of points. Think corn hole meets skeeball! The one caveat – your dog’s leash will be on your throwing arm with volunteers trying to tempt your dog away and ruin your aim. And no, you aren’t allowed to tell your dog to stay 🙂

Each of the four dogs will perform this event one at a time. We will have a stage and put your dog in the middle of it. A Top Dog staff member (or friend/family if you prefer) will hold your dog’s leash while you go to one end of the stage (without a treat). Another Top Dog staffer will be on the other end of the stage, holding a delicious treat. At the count of three your dog will be allowed to move forward and you and the staffer will both try and coax the dog to you. How do you move on to the finals though? Well that will be up to the audience again! Same as the first round, we will put out the four jars for the remaining contestants and let the audience vote with coins. The audience will be told they can vote based on the “saint” dogs who listened to their owners, or the “sinners” who preferred a treat. Whichever speaks to them! The top two dogs move on.

 This will be your opportunity to make it back into the contest and right into the finals. Event TBD. Past years included “Guess the Toy”

The final two owners, as well as the contestant who makes it back in from the loser’s bracket (or a friend if you get stage fright), will individually go on stage with their dog. Each will have up to three minutes to tell a story. Any story! It could be how you got the dog, a cute thing they did, or show off some tricks you taught them. This is your three minutes to do what you want with, so be creative! The winner will be selected by our celebrity judge in this round and not the audience as a whole.