Egg hunts are commonplace during Easter weekend in Kittitas Valley for children but on Friday March 30, Rotary Park hosted a hunt with a focus on the furry, four-legged residents of Ellensburg.

The dog biscuit hunt has been a local Easter event for over a decade, according to Jodi Hoctor, aquatic and recreation supervisor for the City of Ellensburg.

Hoctor said the dog biscuit hunt is “an opportunity for folks to include another family member, [because] often time people consider their pets their family members.”

This year is the second time the annual event has taken place at the off-leash dog park. The location change has allowed the event to flourish and lets the dogs celebrate the holiday with their humans uninhibited.

Laura Landon brought her Great Dane, Bella to the park. Landon has been attending the dog biscuit hunt with Bella for 10 years and before that attended the event with her previous dogs.

“It’s an opportunity for dogs to have socialization,” Landon said. “The off-leash park is very new and before that it was really one of the only times you could guarantee that dogs would have an opportunity for socialization.”

The event is focused on the dogs but the hunt also provides owners an opportunity to socialize as well.

Pet owners can schedule play dates for their pets and meet other residents with similar breeds. The event is a sight to behold for animal lovers who love to watch a horde of friendly dogs eat treats to their hearts’ content.  

“It’s really good to network in case you need someone to watch your dog,” Jhanek Szypulski said.

Szypulski, a graduate student at CWU, takes his dog Harrison to the off-leash park every day and stumbled upon the biscuit hunt by accident.  Harrison found one of the golden eggs and won doggy treats and poop bags for Szypulski.

However, the dog biscuit hunt isn’t the only egg hunt at Rotary Park for Easter.

Once the sun sets and the canines gobble up the final bones, residents start preparing for what organizers affectionately call “the fastest event in the history of events.”

Hoctor says last year they started the flashlight egg hunt at 8:05 p.m. and by 8:30 p.m. she was packed up and pulling out of the parking lot to eat nachos with her family.

The flashlight egg hunt typically lasts five minutes. The children attack the eggs and candy with far more ferocity than the pets of Ellensburg.

The youth of Kittitas tear at the rainbow colored eggs like a pack of piranhas, screams and squeals of joy can be heard ringing out into the night and flashlights flicker in the moonlight.   

“Once the air horn blows [the kids are] like a ginormous vacuum cleaner, you can just see them picking up everything,” Hoctor said.

Approximately 4,000 eggs are placed by organizers and within minutes, every last scrap of chocolate and plastic eggs are snatched up by the youth of Kittitas Valley.

The flashlight egg hunt is divided into three fields for children of different ages. Kids as young as five and as old as 12 can come and enjoy the nighttime fun.

The flashlight egg hunt is free for everyone and is held annually on Fridays to not conflict with other egg hunts and religious activities that take place during the weekend.

For many families, the night time Easter celebration has a become a tradition. KC Bybee has been attending the flashlight hunt with her family for four years.

Like the Bybee family, many residents look forward to the Flashlight egg hunt all year round. There are similar egg hunts in the valley however, the Ellensburg hunt is one of the only free and local hunts available to the public

“My daughter loves it,” Bybee said as she watched her loved ones from the sidelines. Bybee’s youngest child still in a stroller and was too young for this years hunt, but Bybee affirmed that they’ll be back when her youngest daughter can walk.

The flashlight egg hunt and the dog biscuit hunt are held annually on Good Friday at Rotary Park.