How it began

Every year in Topanga Canyon there is a Memorial Day parade. It is a ragtag affair of home-made floats, decorated cars, bands playing rock music on flat bed trucks, outlandishly costumed people, bicycles and assortment of animals including dogs, goats and horses. The whole event is an opportunity for Topanga to celebrate her hippie roots and the locals turn out in force, wearing everything from bikinis to full-on sixties regalia. They line the boulevard, making themselves comfortable in little encampments of friends and family, enjoying the warm weather, community spirit and festive atmosphere.

I decide that year that I am going to walk the parade route with my friend Skye and her newly adopted Bichon named Cabbot and our new puppy, Roxy. As we head down the boulevard we are stopped again and again by people that want to meet the dogs and cuddle Roxy. Everyone it seems loves puppies and Roxy in particular with her bright blue eyes, chocolate coat and wrinkles is creating quite a stir. Repeatedly, I am asked what kind of dog she is and if she is available for adoption.

I realize later that day that I could have given Roxy away twenty times on that walk and an idea begins to formulate - what if I were to find a few dogs at the shelter next year and pull them out right before Memorial Day and walk them in the parade. I could ask my daughters and friends to each walk a dog. We could carry signs or wear t-shirts drawing attention to the shelter dogs and to the fact that all the pups were available for adoption at no cost.

It is two years later when I finally get it together and make up my mind to actually do this. I decide that six dogs would be a manageable number. I ask around and found six homes that are willing to foster a dog for the week lead time. What I didn't know, as I hadn't been in to an animal shelter in over twenty years, was that the shelters in general don't spay or neuter until you adopt your pet and most dogs in the shelter are not fixed. One week, I found out quickly, was too short. It put a lot of pressure on me as it involved two trips for each dog. One to choose the dog and one to pick them up from the clinic. Worse than that was the lack of recovery time for each dog both in terms of their surgery and in terms of what I call shelter shock.

It is a four mile walk for the parade participants in the heat which wouldn't have been so bad on my shelter pups if I had just walked into East Valley Shelter one week prior and pulled all six out then and there. But it just wasn't that easy. For one thing, I really did not want to be stuck with six shelter dogs at the end of the parade, so I couldn't just take any old mutt. I was going for totally irresistible, so basically purebreds and puppies. I am surprised to find the shelters packed with Pits and Chihuahuas and not an awful lot to choose from in terms of other breeds at that time. To find my purebreds and puppies I end up going to six shelters over the course of that week. The only exception to my criteria was Dora I found her in East Valley Shelter. I walk around and around that shelter and end up back at her cage every time. I am not sure why I pull her out because she is a rather odd looking creature, half Basset Hound and half Aussie Shepherd about four years old. She has a big head, long body and short legs. There was a cartoon quality to her, but something told me I had to take her.