By Elinor Tinsley
On Saturday, May 9, 2026, the Texas Crab Festival held one of its most popular crowd pleasers, the Wiener Dog Races. The Texas Crab Festival has been featuring this event, in all its different forms for over 20 years, with more than a few groups heading up this event. Last year Bay Vue Methodist Church was asked to take over the running of the event and were well aware we had some big shoes to fill, as Laura Rojas and her energetic youth group from Island Church in Galveston, had run this event for the previous 7 years and had it down to a well oiled machine. We did pretty well our second year in, and with our ace-in-the-hole, Sherry Morgan as our gatekeeper to refer to, we’re confident that next year will be even smoother.
Owners who register their dogs on the Texas Crab Festival website must provide proof of breed, current shot records and a recent picture of their pup to be fully registered. We started off with 41 dogs registered but some were unable to provide the required information and quite a few dropped out fearing a possible bad weather day. On race day we had 20 dogs raring to go, with one coming all the way from San Antonio and another driving back to Texas from North Carolina just to make race time.
After the retirement of Larry Flannigan as MC last year, Jim Denys stepped up to fill his big shoes and did a great job his first time out. You might be surprised to know how much behind the scenes and day of event work is involved in pulling this event off and the more dogs the more work. Bay Vue was blessed to have 31 volunteers sign up from the church, the Lazy Ladies Aerobics group and friends of church members and all but two were able to help out and it took every one of them.
The Wiener Dog Races are not a sanctioned race they are primarily for the enjoyment of the many festival attendees who love watching this race, but with no registration fee and a $200 1st place, $100 2nd place and a $50 3rd place prize, the race draws a lot of seasoned racers along with the newbies. Four primary heats, two semifinal heats and one final heat later we had three long haired males as our top three finishers. Forest, a seasoned veteran with over 60 trophies on his mantle and his handler, Paula Boxie from San Antonio took home 1st place, Dax and his handler, Aden Guerrero took 2nd place and Dallas and his handler, Ashtyn Guerrero, spouse of Aden, both from Angleton, took home 3rd place.
We thank everyone, volunteers and racers alike for making this a great event. Hope to see you next year.
