As a meeting planner I represent a wide variety of clients, and that includes professionals from all walks of life, speakers, celebrities, politicians and sometimes even pets. Yes, pets.

A recent program I worked on here in Orlando included animals in all shapes and sizes, so here’s a quick and fun post of photo memories from that experience.

For starters they had the best marketing ever, but to be fair, lots of their ‘models’ are just plain adorable to begin with. One really cool element of this conference was that there were plenty of four-legged attendees, many of whom were better behaved than some of the people attendees I normally deal with, but ahem, I digress with that statement. . .

One of our host hotels got into the spirit of things with some playful table decor, and they also had employees bring in pictures of their own pets which were prominently placed on the front desk for everyone to see. A smart move that our attendees really appreciated and commented on every time they had in interaction there. Even the pastry chef joined in on the fun displaying animal images on cookies and cakes and lot of other goodies throughout the program.

And this group took the now-standard requirement for attendees to stretch, exercise, and relax during the conference to a whole new level by offering puppy Pilates, kitten cuddle rooms in the middle of the exhibit hall, and having a local animal shelter bring out dogs to run with participants in the featured fun run, a win-win for both the shelter dogs who always need more exercise and human interaction as well as for the runners themselves.

So that’s a short and hopefully amusing glimpse at just some of the unique things that made my recent meeting planner’s work week into a not-so-normal and definitely more memorable one than most.

But, lest you think it was all fun and games at this incredible conference, take a few minutes to watch this video – which went viral – from our opening general session. It was a specially commissioned poem addressing issues faced by this unique community of individuals, aka veterinarians, that devote their lives to the care and betterment of all animals everywhere. In fact, even if you’re not an animal lover at heart, I dare you to watch this and not reach for a tissue.