Not every Halloween parade is as peaceful, or as colorful, as the one that circled the Plaza on Saturday before queuing up at the gazebo for an awards ceremony that featured prizes of kibble and chew toys. The very thought of almost 30 dogs in one place at the same time seems like a golden opportunity for a dog fight, but that happened the night before at the Healdsburg-Terra Linda football game.
Instead, the 29 pooches that entered in the 2024 Howl-O-Ween pet parade, sponsored by the Humane Society of Sonoma County, showed why they’re beloved by their people as they showed off costumes, wigs, novelty rigs and, in at least one case, their stripes.
It was the sixth annual Pet Parade, a relatively recent tradition that’s beginning to show some legs. With Vice Mayor Evelyn Mitchell hosting, and an all-city cast of judges including Police Chief Matt Jenkins, Fire Chief Jason Boaz, City Councilmember Chris Herrod and Fideaux pet store owner Erin Morris, the participating pets patiently awaited the results and warmly embraced the winners.
The white-striped dog, dubbed Puppy Le Pew for this pre-Halloween event, got a lot of wary attention but no prize for owner Nikki Baxes, of the Ranch at Lake Sonoma. But the Baxes’ daughter, Lybell, made it work with her bewigged boxer Rosie, who took first place in the Medium Dog category.
Other winners included a tiny UPS package from Stefanie Giffin in the Small Dog category, Beauty and the Beast with the Rose by owner Jim Lewis in the Large Dog class, and a Best of Show nod to Top Gun, the shaggy dog behind the stick of a toy fighter jet, from Joyce Wang.
EM the MC
“As you may know, this event has been one dear to my heart for many years,” said Vice Mayor Evelyn Mitchell. “I have had the privilege of being a judge first and now the emcee for a number of years.”
Before becoming a member of the City Council, where she now enters her sixth year, Mitchell served on the Board of Directors for the Humane Society of Sonoma County (HSSC) for 12 years, five of them as the board president. During that same span of time the old Healdsburg Animal Shelter on Westside Road suffered numerous financial and legal troubles, and the only solution was for the county Humane Society to take over the local shelter.
As well as the dogs, cats and occasional bunny, the trade-off included a large new animal shelter under construction nearby, next to where Bacchus Landing has since been built. The new shelter was designed by an architect with little understanding of or familiarity with animals, said Mitchell.
“The way the building was developed was not by an animal-welfare person,” she said, laughing today. “He thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be pretty to have big tall ceilings?’—but there’s a lot of noise when you’ve got dogs barking.” A concrete dog run had to be removed and other mediation fixes made in order to make the shelter work. It’s now one of two HSSC shelters in the county, the other being on Hwy 12 just east of Sebastopol.
Friend-Raising
The failure of the Healdsburg Animal Shelter caused much local distress at the time, and a certain amount of mistrust when the HSSC took it over. “People are very passionate about their animals, as you know,” Mitchell said. “And we got some resistance from people. They were mad at us because the other shelter was fiscally in trouble.”
Mitchell recalled that they “had a bit of an uphill battle to get the community on board.” Part of the Humane Society’s outreach was to take over a small pet parade that Natalie Tappan of the now-closed Healdsburg Doghouse had been hosting.
“The pet parade seems like a small thing overall, but it was a way that the community can see who we are and what we do, and reach out to them in that way,” Mitchell said. Though it was a lot of work and there wasn’t really a viable fundraising element to it, Mitchell still describes the pet parade as a “friend-raiser.”
This year’s Howl-O-Ween included kids’ games of pumpkin tic-tac-toe, a pumpkin bean-bag toss, pin-the-tail-on-the-bunny and others. A raffle station included prizes gifted from volunteers, local wineries and other local businesses.
If after all that there’s still room for one more pet costume party in Healdsburg, it’s being held Saturday afternoon, from 1-4pm, at Fogbelt Station on Hudson Street; yet another HSSC event. The winning dog will be featured on a can of “Dogbelt” beer next year. How’s that for incentive?
