ohmidog!

Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter’s annual fundraiser is this Saturday (October 20, 2012).

The event begins at 11 a.m. near the pagoda  in Patterson Park, but you’re welcome to come earlier and get some exercise.

This year BARCStober Fest, in partnership with Charm City Run, will be featuring its first “Ready…Set…Sniff 5 K Run OR Walk.”

Dogs are welcome to join their humans on the course around Baltimore’s Patterson Park.

Click here to register for the run.

BARCStober Fest is Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter’s primary annual fundraiser, and proceeds benefit the more than 12,000 homeless animals that come to BARCS each year.

The fest  includes: pet contests (including costume), pet health and welfare specialists, pet blessings, pet micro-chipping, stage entertainment, food vendors, local artists, representatives from other rescue groups, a silent auction, raffles and, of course, some ready-to-be-adopted pets.

BARCStoberfest is this Saturday (Oct. 22) at Patterson Park.

K-9 demonstrations, adoptable pets from area shelters and rescues, pet product vendors, food, music and costume contests are all part of the free, day-long event, held by Baltimore Animal Rescue & Care Shelter (BARCS)

In addition, the Orioles bird will be there to promote the 2012 BARCS Orioles calendar and have his picture taken with people and their pets.

The centerpiece of the event is the annual Strut Your Mutt walk, starting at noon.

Participants may register for the walk at the event, starting at 11 a.m., or online, by clicking here.

The top prize for the walker who raises the most money is a trip for two to New York City.

In the pet costume contest, categories include most original costume, most Baltimore costume, and best dog and person look-alikes.

The rain date for BARCStoberfest is Sunday, October 23.

 
You may have noticed that we’re not real big on doggie Halloween costumes this year. We have some issues with the whole idea of costuming pooches — and encouraging the practice — that we are still working through.

That said, here’s one I just can’t pass up. Having eschewed — yes, eschewed — the costume contest at BARCStoberfest, I missed this entry (but spotted him on the Baltimore Sun’s “Unleashed” blog today). It’s Tito, a local Chihuahua, dressed as the ubiquitous pink and yellow Big Boyz Bail Bonds pen.

If you’re not from Baltimore, you might not be familiar with the company, or the fact that its pens — in a true stroke of marketing genius — are everywhere.

Big Boyz Bail Bonds orders more than 500,000 pens a year and provides them for free to bars, restaurants and shops all over town, and all over Maryland.

Mayor Sheila Dixon, during her appearance at BARCStoberfest Sunday, agreed to take the Karma Dogs “Oath of Kindness,” administered on the spot by Karma Dogs co-founder Kelly Gould.

Karma Dogs (of which Ace is one) are primarily rescued dogs who, having been given a second chance, now work to improve the lives of others through relationships with therapy dogs. Karma Dogs work to improvie literacy skills among students, and also works with children and adults with developmental disabilities to improve their communication and socialization skills.

After the death of Phoenix, a pit bull set on fire in Baltimore, Karma Dogs instituted its “Oath of Kindness.” program.

Karma Dogs believes, as research suggests, that people who are unable to bond or empathize with animals have trouble developing and sustaining bonds with people. “It is our intention that by giving children something to be proud of, to be a part of, they will think twice before participating in violence towards any living thing,” the Karma Dogs website explains.

The Oath of Kindness is intended to make children stop and think about how important it is to be kind to all animals and resist the pressure to go along with those who might harm animals, whether in the guise of childhood pranks or dog fighting.

Children are sworn in, by a Karma Dog, as they recite the pledge, and receive a certificate which shows they are pledging to be kind to animals, which is pawtographed by the dog.

The weather cooperated beautifully this time around as BARCStoberfest — delayed for a week due to rain — drew large numbers of dogs and their owners to Baltimore’s Patterson Park for a day of contests, activities and a fund-raising walk held under crisp, clear skies.

Contests were held for best costume, owner-dog lookalikes, best kissers and more. In addition to those official contests, we’ve got some unofficial awards:

Best leg warmers — second place:

 (Official Lifesavers entry?)

 Best leg warmer — first place:

 (And a pretty dazzling flyball player, to boot.)

Best non-portable urinal:

(Toilet trees — for the man who has everything)

Cutest dog — scruffy division:

(If Hollywood ever needs another Benji…)

Best Hannibal Lecter imitation:

(Actually this fella was a sweetheart, all 195 pounds of him)

 Highest Flying Dog

(Chi Chi — flyball star, Karma Dog, and  friend of Ace)

 Cutest dog — wiener division:

BARCStoberfest — rained out last weekend — will take place this Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Baltimore’s Patterson Park, in the area around the pagoda.

The festival’s costume contest, a perennial favorite, starts at 1:30 pm. Dogs can compete in any of several categories: Best Halloween Theme,  Best Hon/Best Boh, Matching Dog & Human and Most Original.

A Best in Show winner will be selected (by audience applause) from the four category winners. There’s a $15 entry fee for each category, and prizes in the contest are donated by Dogma.

Other contests at BARCStoberfest include most unique pet trick or talent, best tail wagger, best singer or howler, best kisser, fastest treat eater and smallest and largest dog. There’s a $5 entry fee for those competitions.

The 5th annual BARCStoberfest is a festival for animal lovers that helps raise funds for BARCS, which takes in 12.000 animals a year.

Due to poor weather conditions for both this Saturday and Sunday, BARCStoberfest has been moved to Sunday, October 25th. Same time, same place — 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Patterson Park — and the delay allows those participating in the Strut Your Mutt walk to raise even more money.

Halloween may be more than a week away, but the time to start costuming your pooch for BARCStoberfest is now.

BARCStoberfest takes place this Saturday, Oct. 17, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Baltimore’s Patterson Park.

The costume contest, a perennial favorite, starts at 1:30 pm. Dogs can compete in any of several categories: Best Halloween Theme,  Best Hon/Best Boh, Matching Dog & Human and Most Original.

A Best in Show winner will be selected (by audience applause) from the four category winners. There’s a $15 entry fee for each category, and prizes in the contest are donated by Dogma.

Other contests at BARCStoberfest include most unique pet trick or talent, best tail wagger, best singer or howler, best kisser, fastest treat eater and smallest and largest dog. There’s a $5 entry fee for those competitions.

The 5th annual BARCStoberfest is a festival for animal lovers that helps raise funds for BARCS, which takes in 12.000 animals a year. If it’s rained out Saturday, it will be held Sunday.

If it’s your dog, and you log in to ohmidog! and send us a comment, you are the lucky winner of an official limited (very, very limited) edition ohmidog! sweatshirt.

Hooded, no less.

At Saturday’s BARCStoberfest, ohmidog! (that’s our booth above) offered photos inside the “o” for a $1 contribution to BARCS Franky Fund, which provides emergency medical care for sick and injured animals. In the days ahead, those photos will be appearing atop our website.

We’ll be featuring four different dogs in the “o” — off an on — over the next two weeks, at which time our website’s banner ad will return to its normal money-making function. (Contact us if you’re interested in that.)

Meantime, spot your dog, log in, and leave a comment — something as simple as “Hey, that’s my dog, where’s my sweatshirt?” – and you’ll get a sweatshirt.

(In addition to that, you’ll need to send us an email, muttsblog@verizon.net, stating your name, mailing address and size.)

Be sure and use the same email address you used when you signed in to have your dog’s photo taken in the “o” (at BARCStoberfest on Saturday).

     Rescue groups, dogs in costume and the Orioles mascot were just a few of the sights to be seen at yesterday’s BARCStoberfest at Patterson Park.
     The annual fundraising event is held by Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS).