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Dog lovers enjoyed a Sunday afternoon with Downtown Phoenix Inc. and the Arizona Humane Society for the second annual Howl-o-ween Featuring the Big Dog Show event at the Margaret T. Hance Park.
The day’s events kicked off with community members and their dogs enjoying concessions
from local vendors, music and an art installation by Boston artist Dale Rogers set up throughout the park. The main attraction featured dogs and their owners in costume and on parade.
The organizations partnered for the event in hopes of engaging the community in a fun and family-friendly way to support the Humane Society, which received all proceeds from the event.
“I feel like downtown Phoenix has a bunch of dog people,” Events Coordinator for Downtown Phoenix Inc Sarah Lynch said. “So when there is an event that is 100 percent geared toward Halloween for helping out animals, people are totally engaged.”
Dogs of all shapes and sizes were dressed up as popular movie characters, food and more. Some of their owners even joined in with matching or coordinating costumes.
Over 200 dogs and owners were estimated to have participated in the parade alone, with countless more dogs and owners in the crowds enjoying the event.
“It was organized chaos, when you bring hundreds of dogs in a park at one time,” R.J. Price, Chief Marketing Officer for Downtown Phoenix Inc, said. “You just don’t know what you’re going to get, but everyone was so well-behaved and everybody was so into the spirit of what we’re trying to do, which is build community through our public assets and our parks.”
Following the parade, judges handed in their results with the winning costumes being the Pope, Terminators and a snow cone.
The day’s winner, a dog named Tuff and owner Brent Hicks, were excited to see they had won first place. Their prize included a photography session at Hatton Pet Portrait Studio. Hicks described his idea for Tuff’s costume.
“It was originally just the costume and I thought, ‘Well, he can’t go through a parade without being behind his bulletproof glass like the normal Pope. So we built the little glass case for him and are just having fun,” he said.
Contact the reporter at jschamko@asu.edu.
