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4th Annual For the Love of Pets Benefit Festival

Bring the whole family (two- and four-legged) to enjoy a good time benefiting local shelters and rescues! July 18, 2020 from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. at American Legion Park in Redmond.

This FREE, dog-friendly community festival is host to an IPA tasting, music, silent auction, raffle, dozens of vendors and adoptable pets galore. 100% of funds raised at the event are split among the beneficiaries, which are Brightside Animal Center, Three Rivers Humane Society, Humane Society of the Ochocos and Herd U Needed A Home.

Raffle announcements and giveaways every hour!

Bring product donations (e.g. cat litter, tennis balls, bleach) in exchange for raffle tickets.

Visit www.FLPBenefit.com for more details!

Wild Weenie Wonderland

Join BrightSide Animal Center for a start to your Holiday Season! We’ll have wiener dog races at 1:30pm and an ugly sweater contest at 2:30pm – all shapes, sizes, colors and weights welcome! A special prize for best matching sweater combo. Vendors for shopping, food trucks for munchies and Wild Ride Brewing beverages!

Located at Wild Ride Brewing Co., 332 SW Fifth St., Redmond, OR 97756

Benefit Book Sale!

Join us for our first preowned book sale! We have been collecting donations of gently loved books from the community, and now we are ready to share these treasures with you! We have tons of preowned books for all ages at yard sale prices. All proceeds benefit the nonprofit Furry Freight Shelter Transport and their mission of #SavingShelterPetsOneRoadTripAtATime Learn more about FFST at https://furryfreight.org!

For the Love of Pets Benefit Festival

Bring the whole family (two- and four-legged) to American Legion Park to enjoy a good time benefiting local shelters and rescues.

This FREE, dog-friendly community festival is host to an IPA tasting, great food, dozens of vendors and adoptable pets galore. 100% of funds raised at the event are split among the beneficiaries.

Raffle announcements and giveaways every hour!

Bring product donations (e.g. cat litter, tennis balls, bleach) in exchange for raffle tickets.

Visit www.FLPBenefit.com for more details!

The History of the Bend Pet Parade

The Fourth of July Pet Parade in downtown Bend is a celebrated tradition more than eighty years old.

Fireworks, pie and pets! The Bend Fourth of July Pet Parade started with a simple concept: let local children walk or pull their pets in wagons as they parade through downtown. It has attracted thousands of spectators each year since its inception, enduring through the Great Depression and times of war (though the parade was cancelled from 1942 to 1944 during WWII). Today, the event draws an estimated 8,000 participants and onlookers.

Local cable channels broadcast the festivities live with commentary on novelty pets such as Daisy, the flying dog. In 2014, the pet parade was designated as an Oregon Heritage Tradition by the Oregon Heritage Commission. In keeping with tradition, participating kids receive popsicles from the Bend Fire Department after the parade. 

History on Parade

Come Fourth of July, Bendites go big on celebrations and take to the streets to continue a long tradition of parades. Festivities historically centered around two major parades, one of pageantry and one of animal domestication—the latter of which is still thriving.

Bend’s oldest parade, the Pet Parade started in the summer of 1932, when 100 children marched a menagerie down Wall Street to compete for a first prize of four dollars. Four-year-old Doris Grubb won the first pet parade pushing her cat, Tom, in a baby stroller; a badger came in sixth place. Unlike many parades, the pet parade was open to any species of pet. Over the years, “pets” have included deer, badgers, gold fish, chickens, squirrels, ducks, oxen, calves, a pet eagle and baby coyotes.

From 1933 to 1965, the more extravagant Bend 4th of July Stampede and Water Pageant popularized Bend for tourists from across the state, offering a three-day schedule of festivities that included everything from archery contests and bowling to social balls and baseball games. Epic and ambitious, the water pageant took place at night on Mirror Pond, as elaborate floats made by local businesses drifted down the Deschutes River through Drake Park. In 1940, attendance swelled to 18,000, more than doubling the population of the town at the time. The extravagance eventually went by the wayside, leaving the children and animals to shine.

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