Dog competition brings awareness to Tualatins animal rescue organizations.

Pageantry and pride of dog ownership will still be on display Saturday, but this year’s “Atsa My Dawg Show” will look a little different.

Nancy Truax, an organizer and one of four contest judges at the Tualatin Crawfish Festival’s signature event, explained there will be two new categories this year. In addition to traditional competitions for Best Trick and the always popular Best Themed Costume, there will be an Agility Race and a contest for Best Junior Team. These new events replace last year’s subjective Best Looking competition as well as the Frisbee throw.

Best Junior Team invites a pairing of kids, ages 12 and younger, to show off their four-legged friends in any way they see fit. There are no rules for how a team competes.

“They can do anything,” Truax said. “The team can just walk around the circle (course), put a costume on the dog — anything the child wants to do to entertain the crowd. The idea is to bring the family out” to the competition, so that this year’s Atsa My Dawg Show becomes “multigenerational.”

On the agility course, dogs and their human handlers will be graded on speed. “It’s kind of like dog Olympics,” Truax said.

The Atsa My Dawg Show is a much-loved fixture in the Crawfish Festival line-up, and if last year’s attendance is any indication, there will be more than 40 local dogs competing. And just as the Crawfish Festival continues to grow and reinvent itself, the dog show has a new focus this year: Animal rescue.

Truax credits Jim Jeans, general manager of event sponsor Petco, for putting so much focus on local animal rescue organizations. Three of the four event judges are from local animal shelters: Truax serves as development and events director for Oregon Dog Rescue, Linda Liebenstein is CEO of Oregon Friends of Shelter Animals and Aaron Asmus is executive director of the Cat Adoption Team, the largest animal rescue organization in the Northwest.

“It was Jim’s hope that by having judges who are connected with rescue groups, we can bring awareness to rescue and shelter organizations,” Truax said.

Above all, of course, the contest is about the bonds festival-goers enjoy with their canine companions, which is why all who attend have a chance to challenge their dogs in feats of dexterity — or simply show their dogs off to the crowd. And there’s a lot for spectators to enjoy, too: Truax recalls last year’s Best Trick winner, a Jack Russell terrier whose talent was luring helium balloons down to his level, where he’d pop them with admirable speed.

“It was hysterically funny,” Truax recalled.