Reporting: Nicole Quinn & Victoria Howkins
To mark the annual Howl’OWeen parade, dogs of all shapes and sizes strutted along the streets of Liverpool on Sunday in their most barking-mad costumes.
A group of pugs led the way on the walk leaving from BrewDog Bar on Colquitt Street and returning there for treats and non-alcoholic doggy beer prepared by their chefs.
BrewDog and Pug Pride teamed up for this event and on the day took donations for Merseyside Dogs Home.
Centre support officer, Emma Logan, told JMU Journalism: “It’s been really good to go round and chat to people, we’re reaching a new audience to let them know about our work.
Vimeo: Victoria Howkins, JMU Journalism
“There are so many rescue dogs that are needing homes and lots of people who are looking to get a dog. It’s nice to maybe influence that and get more people to rescue rather than buy. We have all types of dogs that need homes and we want to encourage people to look at their local shelters first before a breeder.
“It’s my responsibility to raise as much money as possible to cover our vet bills. They can be between £2,000 and £3,000 a month and we don’t get any funding in. All of that is paid for by people like this today who are willing to put some money in buckets.”
Everyone showed their creativity with the dog costumes, ranging from pumpkins, spiders and bats to Finding Nemo, a Minion and even a Donald Trump.
Katie Ramsden, 22, dressed her dog Marley as the house from Disney’s UP movie. She told JMU Journalism: “Liverpool is becoming such a dog-friendly city, hopefully people can realise that dogs are fine to go in some places. I would love more places to be dog-friendly like BrewDog because I take her everywhere with me… she’s even got her own Instagram.”
Robin Ellis, 39, came as Harry Potter with his dog as Dobby. He said: “I think the crowd is fantastic, lots of friendly people and dog-lovers out and about.”
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