Pet show a grand fair tradition

Of all the events that take place each year at the Roosevelt County Fair, there’s something about the Saturday morning pet show that has a special place in my heart.

I’m not sure how common pet shows are at county fairs — I did a little internet searching and didn’t come up with a lot of mentions. I didn’t see one on the schedule at Curry County or at Lea County this year.

Yet, the Roosevelt County Fair has hosted a pet show as far back as my memory goes, and for most of the years (maybe all?) it’s been the local Kiwanis Club that has managed the event.

It’s a grand tradition that assures that every kid who manages to wrestle a pet into the arena walks out with a blue ribbon and a grin.

Fairs are, by and large, competitive arenas, whether you’re hoping to score with homemade apricot jam or fluffing an 1,100-pound steer to beauty shop perfection to win the judge’s eye.

But pet shows? They are nothing but love, pride, and pure chaos.

You’d have to look far and wide to find an unlikelier combination of kids and critters than at the Roosevelt County Fair pet show.

I’ve not seen a statistical breakdown, but I’d bet big money that dogs are the main participants, and with good reason. Plenty of homes have one or two, and many dogs actually seem to enjoy the madness and mayhem of a good pet show.

Cats would be on the other end of that spectrum, but plenty of felines have been crammed into pet carriers and hauled — yowling in protest — to the arena to be recognized for “sharpest teeth,” “angriest eyes,” or “most resentful.”

Once you get past dogs and cats, there’s no end to what might come crawling, trotting, or slithering through those gates: goats, ponies, calves, sheep, fish, lizards, turtles, and snakes, to name a few.

My brother and I entered microscopic brine shrimp one year, captured on a family vacation to the Great Salt Lake. We carried them in small, watertight medicine bottles, and we were smug with the satisfaction of having the only essentially invisible pets.

Did we win?

Of course, we did.

I’m sure the judge came up with some clever reason for our blue ribbons — “Tiniest Pet,” “Only Pet Exhibited in a Prescription Drug Vial,” or possibly “Pet Most Likely to Die from Lack of Oxygen.”

Did we gain life skills, make lifelong friends, push ourselves to new limits?

Heck no.

We just got to have fun and giggle and take home a blue ribbon for being there.

Maybe next year, they need to have a division for us grownups. I might even round up a fresh brine shrimp.

Betty Williamson thinks every fair needs a pet show, and every kid needs a brine shrimp … or maybe not. Reach her at:

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