McKamey’s Barktoberfest and Meowlloween dress up Saturday
Dog is man’s best friend, right? So why doesn’t man ever take dog out for a beer?
If that bit of unfairness has been inflaming your social justice gland, McKamey Animal Center has just the fix: This Saturday, Oct. 24, you and your dog are invited for an evening of beer, food and fun as McKamey celebrates its first-ever “Barktoberfest.”
“There will be a lot of Oktoberfests and beer gardens and Halloween parties going on all over Chattanooga, but we think that ours is unique because you can bring your pets to it,” said Amber Battaglia, McKamey’s community outreach director. “You can go to the beer garden and bring your dog.”
Nor are cats left out: The event is also a “Meowlloween” party, and though cats are not invited to attend physically—felines are seldom enthusiastic social mixers outside their own homes—festivities include a cat costume contest by photograph. Email your dressed-up cat pics to Jeff Wilhite at jwilhite@mckamey animalcenter.org by 4 p.m. on Friday.
Costume contests for dogs and humans will be on-site and in-person.
And if your ménage includes companion animals of the two-legged variety, Barktoberfest features plenty of free activities for children, including trick-or-treating and an outdoor Halloween movie.
Barktoberfest/Meowlloween will take place on McKamey’s several acres at 4500 N. Access Road. “Behind our shelter, we have woods that we’ve recently built a path through,” said Battaglia. “We’re going to have the trick-or-treating for dogs and kids on that path, and the beer garden for the Barktoberfest is going to be in a yard next to our building.”
Tickets for the Barktoberfest dinner und Biergarten are $20 apiece or $30 per couple. Kinder 16 and under may essen for an additional $5 each with purchase of an adult ticket.
Showing off German is a theme you may expect to continue at the dinner, which includes schnitzel skewers, bratwurst, potato pancakes and—what else?—German chocolate cake.
Reservations are encouraged and may be made at McKamey’s website, mckameyanimalcenter.org or by calling Jeff Wilhite at (423) 305-6507 by 4 p.m. Friday. Wilhite says just showing up is fine, too.
Battaglia stressed that besides the optional dinner and beer garden: “Everything else, the movie, the trick-or-treating, the costume contest, all of that is free.”
Ticket sales, she explained, benefit McKamey’s treatment of animal-cruelty victims, which takes up a hefty share of McKamey’s resources.
All recreational activities are from 5-9 p.m., but McKamey will offer special animal adoption prices all day long, from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. The usual $65 for dogs and $40 for cats will be reduced to $31 and $13. That includes spay/neuter, worming, shots, flea/heartworm preventative, microchipping and health coverage for the first month.
What are you waiting for? Tell Bowzer, “Get your costume on, pal, we’re steppin’ out.”