NEWBURY — Hundreds of dogs and their loving humans will be able to enjoy everything from toys and treats to agility courses and emotional reunions Saturday when Sweet Paws Rescue holds its ninth annual Barktoberfest fundraiser at Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm.
“It really just raises awareness on the fact that there’s a dog out there for everyone and every dog needs a home,” Sweet Paws media specialist Josie Daigle said.
Running from noon to 5 p.m., the event is set to have something for the whole family.
“We have live music. We have all these free kids activities like face painting and toy making. The Essex County sheriff will be there with their canine. They’re going to do a canine demonstration. We have a dog agility course,” Daigle said.
Sweet Paws Rescue is a nonprofit rescue based in Groveland that rescues many dogs from Massachusetts, Alabama and Mississippi. Since 2011, the agency has saved 22,000 dogs, according to Daigle.
“This is a chance for not only our adopters to come with their rescues to come meet and be reunited with their siblings or revisit the fosters and the volunteers that they worked with up north, but it’s also a chance again for our southern team to come north,” Daigle said.
She said their rescuers down south often see the worst cases of abandonment and cruelty.
“They just see the bad. They see dumped cats, dumped dogs, just mangy, emaciated animals. And then they nurse them back to health and then they send them north,” Daigle said.
The event, Daigle said, serves as a way for rescuers to see how their work paid off.
“They get to spend a weekend and ultimately see the good that they have been a part of,” Daigle said.
She is expecting many furry friends to turn out for the festivities.
“We could have anywhere between 500 to 1,000 dogs come on site and around 2,000 people,” Daigle said.
Daigle went on to say there will be six food vendors, beer and wine salespeople and about 15 animal vendors for folks to visit.
Stevie Bareford, owner of Amesbury’s Barewolf Brewing, one of the vendors, said he has worked with the group for countless events.
“They’re a great organization. I mean, they’re doing God’s work and doing a lot of it. They’re a small army of volunteers all with their hearts in the right place. I’m really excited for us to be able to pop back up at this really cool event,” Bareford said.
Tickets are $10 per person with families getting in for $35. Children and dogs enter for free.
“Typically, between our sponsors, cash raffles on-site, entry fees, and then our vendors typically donate as well, we can raise $50,000 for Sweet Paws Rescue,” Daigle said. “Sweet Paws Rescue is entirely volunteer powered, foster powered, so we are relying on our community ultimately at all times to save the animals, house the animals, feed them, and ultimately fund our efforts.”
One thing Daigle said she always looks forward to is the reunions that go on, whether it be dog siblings finding each other or a dog reconnecting with the person who originally rescued them.
“All of our adopters will check in at a time. And they actually get a bandana that matches the color of their rescuer, and then their rescuers are on site in that specific color. So if the adopters haven’t met the rescuer yet, or they just want the dog to see the rescuer again, they can do that,” Daigle said.
Full event details can be found at: www.sweetpawsrescue.org.