On the hottest day of summer in a backyard filled with poodles, I thought longingly of the worst field trip experience that I ever had as the parent of a preschooler.

It was a lovely Ballard backyard, but there was no breeze, just full exposure to the sun.

For the poodles, there was a wading pool and treats called frosty paws. Although there were also beverages for the humans, the poodles assumed the coffee cake and bagels were also for them, crowding en masse beside anyone with a plate.

Crouching on a chair in an attempt to avoid the crush of poodle paws, I thought back to that visit to the pumpkin patch on a particularly miserable day in October.

Several children fell in the mud, which turned their fingers blue and brown. Driving south on I-5, it rained so hard that it was impossible to see the road. The wet children let off steam that obscured the windows, and then there was a sort of pillow fight involving doll clothes and Kleenex. I had to pull over and attempt a time-out threat. My daughter looked at me terrified between two girls waiting to resume textile tossing. I felt like I couldn’t control or protect them.

On this summer day, I had been invited to attend “Poodlepalooza,” an informal, annual gathering of poodles and their owners.

I recognized that the connecting thread between the poodle gathering and pumpkin patch was a sense of powerlessness, and many opportunities for alliteration with the letter P.

But in the grip of the heat wave, the bone-cold of the pumpkin patch suddenly seemed a welcome memory.

To put it mildly, I am not a dog person. But, the idea of a “Poodlepalooza” sounded as whimsical and fun as a troupe of Elvis impersonators all sky-diving at once.

Perhaps it hadn’t occurred to me beforehand that, unlike visiting exotic animals at the zoo, these animals wouldn’t be contained.

The first thing I realized is that I should have worn closed-toe shoes. Standard poodles are not light; putting aside the one miniature in attendance, there was a possibility of being trod upon by 28 paws with multiple nails. Perhaps needless to say, I was the only non-owner.

One poodle couldn’t attend because of an issue involving ear drainage. Two others had decamped for the waters of Lake Chelan. Four had been groomed until the wee hours of the previous night, prompting the comment, “You put a mustache on a girl dog?”

The poodles seemed familiar with one another, giving each other a quick sniff and then succeeding in making the yard and humans look very small.

The oldest dog, Georgie, had the sense to find shade. The youngest, Teckla, had the most bounce. There were the two Gs, Gordy and Georgie, the four Bs, Bailey, Baxter, Benson and Brody, and the two Ts, Teckla and Tove. At least one was a Schnoodle, a Schnauzer Poodle.

I mostly listened to the unfamiliar speak of serious dog owners regarding the best groomers, the difference between dogs with blogs and dog-bloggers, teeth-brushing tips and massage therapy. The hostess, who prefers to be known as Georgie and Gordy’s owner, distributed treats from her pockets and produced many a “frosty paw.”

Looking at the beautiful coats of mostly white poodles, I thought of how they would look covered in the dark farm mud of that Snohomish pumpkin patch so long ago.

Like those children in the back seat, the poodles mostly ignored me, aware that I was an outsider. Unlike cats, dogs don’t seem drawn to rub against those who are allergic or simply not dog-people.

One woman with four dogs had driven all the way down from Everett for the get-together. Her dogs have each other and while she has them, perhaps owners need the company of other owners sometimes.

The owner of the Four Bs, and herself a dog-blogger, told the others where to get break-away collars. She told how she once lost a dog, an earlier B, who had gotten his collar caught inside his cage and strangled. Just recently she had come to find a break-away collar caught in the deck but the dog safe.

She ruffled the head of her newest dog, the one that replaced her lost Bijou.

“He was the one who was saved because of the one who died," she said.

It was quiet a moment, both dogs and owners were still as a chill passed through despite the waves of heat. It seems in the end we all want the same thing as parents and owners; we want to keep our babies safe.