2016 | ZentaiSpot

One of my last outings as Mr Puppy UK 2015 was to attend the Birthday Bonanza organised by Buster (@BirminghamPup) for his Birthday – a Puppy event being held at Underworld in Birmingham, designed to be a fun evening where you could be a pup or take part in other activities.

The event itself was fun, with a raffle, various games going on and many pups just chilling out and hanging out – as well as a fantastic buffet provided.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really get many photographs of me as a puppy, but I did get some of puppy getting up to other things 🙂

At the start of the year, I became involved, through SLOSH, in helping write a script and planning for some filming which happened at a venue in Birmingham back in May. Although it was a “Wet and Messy” film, I did manage to stay clean throughout the process – the “benefits” of being backstage crew and also the techy pup on site (I took a van load of filming equipment, power distribution, microphones and props etc). … Hopefully in the not to distant future the ‘film’ will be released to the members of SLOSH 😉

However, if you do want to see some messy photos, then some films that I starred in are for sale on a website known as “UMD”, which you can sign up to for free if you want to buy them… You can buy them from http://dalmatian_productions.umd.net/ but as a special treat for readers of my blog until January 6th 2017, spotxmas2016 will get you 10% off!

However, at the end of the 3 days of filming, there was an offer from the venue owners of allowing us to make use of the equipment in the venue… so we did. Although, truthfully, we didn’t – we only made use of one piece of equipment 🙂

The venue in question, Underworld has a nice suspension frame with 4 electric winches… and I have a set of suspension cuffs, and take pleasure in being suspended – so this seemed to be a winning combination 🙂

I was suspended in all sorts of weird and wonderful directions, and eventually had some E-Stim added while I was upside down… resulting in somewhat of an explosion 🙂

The 25th of June saw me participating in this year’s London Pride, leading the mixed walking group featuring Puppy Pride & Pup Social. This year, I was again accompanied by Caz and Wayne from E-Stim Systems, with Caz holding my lead while Colin was taking photographs.

With a change in starting point this year, we had to find our way to a different station on the Underground. As we were getting in to the lifts at Regent’s Park, a member of the public in the queue behind us recognised me from the TV documentary, so while waiting on the lift, and travelling up, we had a chat about pup stuff. Part of the reason for being so early was there had been a change in system this year, and walkers were to be issued Wristbands by the group organisers, so we arrived early to pick up our wrist bands.

Next on the agenda was to go and get some water and snacks for the duration of the wait and the walk to make sure we didn’t dehydrate etc. as we were walking around. As we wandered off to get a drink and a bite to eat in the nearest cafe, I was stopped on the way by someone who recognised me from the TV documentary again.

We assembled at the new starting point, and like usual, we waited… and waited… and waited. Eventually, the group set off down the road following the rest of the parade participants. Much like normal, this was very stop & start, but during the time a number of people watching at the sides kept recognising me and shouted at me, and that lasted the whole route.

As we finished, we gathered for a whole group shot of the pups that had participated, and it was at this point the sheer volume of pups & handlers that had participated became apparent with the size of the assembled group!

After goodbyes were said, we retired to town and Five Guys with me still in my pup outfit – it’s just a shame the O2 store I went in to had stopped the “Be More Dog” campaign!

Way back in August, I joined the “Pups of the South” group for a visit to Brighton Pride. We weren’t walking in the parade, but we did watch a bit of it and have a wander around – as well as some time on the beach and on Brighton Pier.

It was a good day out and the weather was excellent, but there’s not that many photos from it unfortunately, but I’ve shared the few I do have here.

Thanks to everyone that organised the pup group and hope we can do it again!

*wags*

The late May Bank Holiday weekend saw the annual pride festival in Birmingham, and unlike last year, I didn’t need to leave quickly this year which meant I could enjoy more of the day. Birmingham Pride was also the first event after the TV Documentary was shown… which meant it was going to be an interesting day!

Unusually, this time, I joined the Midlands Pups Walking Group and actually walked in the parade this year. While the parade is not as long as London, I was not able to complete as much of it on all 4s as I’d have liked due to the weather being particularly hot. However, it was a good time and people definitely recognised me from the documentary – with people from the crowds recognising me and shouting at me. I did my best to see as many of them as possible.

After the parade, and a quick bit of food and drink we did our usual walk around the actual Event Village… if we’d thought it was hectic and chaotic in the past, that was nothing compared to this year – given people were recognising me from the TV. I could barely walk 20 metres without someone wanting a photo 🙂

As has become semi-traditional, I found the fun fair in the village and had to go on that – fully dressed up of course!