The North Wollongong Hotel has paired with Pound Paws for Wollongong’s first ‘Dog Day’.
The event is a celebration of pet adoption. It is being held to raise awareness about Pound Paws and to encourage prospective dog owners to ‘adopt instead of shop’.
A free, family-friendly event, North Gong Dog Day will feature live entertainment, a rescue dog parade and a number of stalls from rescue organisations with dogs available for adoption on the day.
‘Dog Day’ events have been held in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and the events helped to successfully re-home many dogs.
Pound Paws founder and Dog Day coordinator Brittany Bloomer hopes all the dogs at the Wollongong event will be adopted on Saturday.
“That would be a dream outcome. It would also be great for the community to leave the event with a positive view towards rescue pets,” she said.
Ms Bloomer said Dog Day is a chance to demonstrate dogs from pounds and rescue centres can be happy and healthy pets.
Pound Paws is a charity organisation which helps re-home pets in Australia. It is also focused on educating the public about death row and the importance of choosing to adopt.
“Too many healthy dogs get put down per year. It’s our mission to to lower the amount that end up on death row and break the stereotype that pounds are full of ‘reject’ pets,” Ms Bloomer said.
North Gong Dog Day will showcase Wollongong’s strong pet and rescue community along with the work done by a number of local rescue organisations.
Deaf Dog Rescue Australia director Jai Wilson said the day will help put Wollongong on the rescue map. She is particularly excited about raising awareness for adopting deaf dogs through the event.
“Being a small Rescue, we don’t get the followers like larger ones. I really hope on the day that I can spread awareness of deaf dogs and obtain more followers on Facebook who can share dogs for adoption or consider fostering with Deaf Dog Rescue,” Miss Wilson said.
“The community can meet the faces working hard behind the scenes of rescue. It also will highlight the amount of dogs needing homes and who people can reach out to.”
Ms Bloomer is excited by the online response North Gong Dog Day has received and hopes to make it an annual event.
“It’s great to see a community so passionate about dog rescue. Whether the rescue group is small or big, they all make a huge difference,” she said.
