London Pride 2014

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Jun 282014
 

Today saw the Annual London Pride Parade and this pup was part of it, courtesy of Puppy Pride organising the walking group. So this morning, I sorted out the outfit, and as an added twist I included my E-Stim Systems Remote Box. There was a reason for the Remote Box though … Caz from E-Stim Systems was going to be my handler for the day so that my owner could take pictures.

Due to a slight delay at home, we got off a bit later than planned, but still with enough time to get there before the Parade started. En-Route, we met with Caz and Wayne and carried onto Baker Street. … A quick loo stop and snack and then down to meet the rest of the group. Once with the rest of the group [too many names to remember to list here!], I finished off putting the hood, paws and knee pads on, and became my pup self. … Then the rain started!!! Luckily we bought a rainbow brolly and it was big enough to keep this pup and Caz dry. Whilst waiting for the Parade to start I bumped into a few people I knew which was fun 🙂 *wags* and we all hoped the rain would pass – which by luck, it did just before we started.

Due to the ground being wet, I didn’t go straight off on all-4’s and walked normally 🙁 … technically though we hadn’t entered the public part of the parade yet, so it wasn’t the end of the world … We got near to the official start line and the sun had just tried to come out, meaning the ground had dried somewhat, so I dropped to all-4’s and was off! I had great fun, thought due to damp ground, and the parade moving a bit quicker than previous years, I had to drop in and out of being on all-4’s, but when stood up I did make myself known well by barking (loudly) at the crowds … who needs whistles 😉

At one point I went and said ‘hello’ to a real bio-puppy, too much amusement from people around. … The parade moved at a steady pace for the main part, so I was stood up, barking – though whenever we stopped I dropped to all-4’s and had fun with the crowds. One person even gave me their real dog so they could have a photo with me and the real dog *wags*

The main parade for me is a bit sketchy, as when in full pup mode, I don’t seem to really recall much, mainly because I’m enjoying just being a pup.

The rain stayed off for the most of the event, but when we did have a light drizzle my surrogate handler (Caz) did an excellent job of keeping me dry with the brolly.

The end seemed to come all to quick, and the group got directed into a side street to be able to have a mass group shot (or 2 or 3 or 4 ……. ) and then de-pup and head off our separate ways.

The decision for us was to head off back to Baker Street to the Nandos Chicken restaurant there to have some dinner …. though after dinner, I re-pupped up (as I hadn’t taken off the Zentai or knee-pads yet) and travel back home as a puppy on the train which caused much amusement to the carriage we were in – and it also confused the Beagle Bio-Dog that got on with us!

Overall a fantastic day out, the rain didn’t dampen spirits, and all had good fun …. some pics of me are here on my blog, and then as I find others I’ll do a couple of follow up posts

*wags* small paw tip up

Birmingham Pride – 2014

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May 262014
 

Saturday 24th May marked the main day of this year’s Birmingham Pride, and like last year, a group of pups decided that we’d go for a walkabout after the parade around the Pride Village… well, we had decided this but the weather gods didn’t quite agree!

My owner and I did decide to do the sensible thing this year, though, and arrived by train rather than trying to drive in to Birmingham and park… It was a little wet on our drive to the train station we stated at (Warwick, but more of that in a later post!) so we weren’t holding out much hope, and FugaPup was also trying to coordinate everyones thoughts on what to do…

I was already travelling in my Zentai outfit, just with my trousers and a fleece over the top as it was a little chilly, and I’d go see-through in the rain! On arriving at Birmingham we met up with everyone in on one of the pubs in the village for a drink while people were deciding what to do. After a bit of time in the pub, it was decided that those that were going to be in Rubber would go off and change which left the rest of us to wander around while they were away…

Really, this meant sheltering in a doorway while it rained and rained… but eventually, the sun did come out, the rubber pups returned and the fun began. We headed back to the pub we were in earlier first so that people could fully pup up and change in to their gear first of all.. At this point, there were four pups: Me, @PupGizmo, @PupTyler and @MLatexM

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We set off from the bar, and before we’d even got 50 yards from the bar, we were being approached for photos and pictures and being petted etc. We made a quick walk down to the Cabaret tent, where we then made a slower walk up from there so that people could see us etc. This was definitely a slow walk, as people kept stopping us and asking for pictures which was great fun 🙂

We ended up walking for just over 1hr on a stretch of road you could normally do in 10 minutes with so many people around, and so many people wanting pictures – young to old, male and female and even security guards and people representing the Emergency Services on site 🙂

We were later joined by a couple of other puppies who had just their pup hoods on and hadn’t changed, so by the end of the walk there was about 7 of us – all being stopped for photographs etc. As it was starting to get chillier, and @KinkyKKOB had an app on his phone predicting rain in 10 minutes, we headed down a side street to take a couple of group photos and head off. Even then we were still getting requests for photos though 🙂

We then went off and had a social meal with everyone and then it was time for us all to head home… but it was another fantastic day (despite the weather) and this pup had a great time *wags*

Spot

Jul 012013
 

I was sent this last night via twitter from: @sianbambina :
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*Wags* Thank you 🙂 – If there are any other pictures out there I’d still love to see them.

I have also been searching and found some more pics of the pups in the parade:
Pictures from Flickr (The first few links I can’t grab the image – but the links are here to the images)

Flickr 1
Flickr 2
Flickr 3
Flickr 4

These are clickable pictures to the Flickr stream of the person who took them:

And here are some Facebook picture links:
Facebook Picture Link 1
Facebook Picture Link 2
Facebook Picture Link 3
Facebook Picture Link 4
Facebook Picture Link 5
Facebook Picture Link 6
Facebook Picture Link 7
Facebook Picture Link 8
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Facebook Picture Link 10

London Pride – Alternative View

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Jun 302013
 

Spot’s asked me to take write anything down that he didn’t cover in his blog post, because I could see more of what was going on…

I have to say, his post covered the majority of what was going on during the parade,but there were a few observations that I did spot.

Firstly, the group in front of us during the parada this year, from the Royal Bank of Canada, were definitely more friendly and pleasurable to follow than last years… no annoying music, and they spoke to us etc. during the walk. The other thing that Spot possibly didn’t realise was the crowds – there were fantastic numbers lining the streets, watching and cheering all the groups as they went past.

There were a couple of memorable moments throughout the walk… as Spot mentioned, he had a bit of a competition with a dog. The small dog did seem rather put out by having a large pup barking back at him and kept cowering away – we saw him more during the parade, and each time – he still did it!

Another incident was when we were walking down towards Picadilly Circus and there was a rather serious looking Police Women standing at the side of the road (she must have been VERY warm given her uniform!) and as the group of pups approached – a large smile appeared on her face 🙂

The last thing that stands out is the fact that members of the crowd were quite surprised by the volume and realism behind Spot’s bark… at least I got peace at the end of the night as he could hardly talk 🙂

Finding the sign when we were wandering to Soho was fantastic – it’s something we’ve often talked about doing, and it’s the first chance we’ve had to do something like that. Now we’ll maybe start doing photos outside Pound Lane etc. 🙂 Wandering through Soho was busy, but lots of people kept stopping to get their pictures taken which meant it was a slow progress, but also nice to see…

It was a fantastic day out, hopefully everyone enjoyed it and we put a smile on their faces 😀