Pottstown Pet Fair Was Biggest Yet and Fun For People and Pets

Written by Community Editor Nicole Foulke

The third annual Pottstown Pet Fair was laid out on Pottstown’s Memorial Park on Saturday, where guests and their pets were treated to Philadelphia Zoo animals, a visit with tiny piglets, 83 vendors, a dog agility display, a Pottstown Rotary Club duck race on the river, a low-cost rabies clinic, and much more.

The free event, a time for people and their pets, was held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and organized by Pottstown borough employees, including Bill Sharon.

Friendly Philadelphia Zoo handlers treated guests to a visit with several of their animals, including Emily the polecat-ferret and Camilla, a three-banded armadillo. Ursula, an African pygmy hedgehog, could be seen busily digging through her enclosure when she was not out meeting people. 

The Pig Placement Network came with two tiny, black, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs for guests to pet as the piglets snuffed around their gated play area.

Guests Colleen Heim and Ralph Streeton were enjoying the fair, here, visiting the piglets with their American pit bulls Lolly and Lucy. “It’s awesome,” said Heim. “We’re really enjoying walking around, seeing the different dogs and talking to people … a lot of the rescues are familiar with pit bulls.”    

Jak, a law enforcement K-9 from the Pottstown police department, was on hand with his partner, Officer Yambrick, who cheerfully fielded questions from passers-by. Jak is a multitalented German Shepherd Belgian Malinois mix from the Czech Republic.

Responding to commands in both Czech and English, Jak can detect narcotics, search buildings, apprehend suspects, and protect his handler.

The Pottstown Rotary Club sold tickets for their duck race down the river, where each ticket bought a rubber duck that ‘raced’ its colleagues down the river to be one of the first 150, who would will a prize.

Eighty-three vendors came, selling goods ranging from pet food to pet accessories, and more. This was the fair’s highest number of vendors, thus far.

Some of the pets visiting the fair were vaccinated for rabies at the Montgomery Heath Department’s low-cost rabies clinic, where veterinary professionals like Theresa Woodard, the head vet for the Montgomery county SPCA, quickly vaccinated pets like Rockie the Chihuahua, brought by his human, Julie Fluck.

The Health Department runs several rabies vaccine clinics in the county during the year, allowing pet owners to pay only $10 instead of the usual $50-60 that a veterinarian’s office might charge, according to Julie Paoline, Director of the Health Department’s Communicable Disease and Control and Prevention department

Paoline also cautions pet owners not to buy the rabies vaccines found online, and to consult a licensed veterinarian, instead.