Poochella offers fun day for pets, owners

Dog owners will find a number of vendors and a variety of fun activities for their pets at the city of Marysville’s Poochella event on June 5.

The free event will be held at the Jennings Memorial Park ballfield. The event will be from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“Multiple different businesses will be coming out,” said Chris Taylor, cultural arts supervisor for the city of Marysville. “They will be all about the dog and they will have different ways to care for your pet."

A total of 18 different organizations and businesses are scheduled to come out for the event. That includes adoption and rescue organizations, dog bed businesses, and dog food producers.

“They will talk about the best food for your dog depending on its breed,” said Taylor.

Products for purchase, literature and information will be available throughout the event.

“If it helps out with your dog’s life, you can find it here,” said Taylor.

Some contests will also be held as part of the day.

“At the top of every hour there will be different events,” said Taylor. Those events include a costume contest, a best trick contest and a “food devouring” contest.

You can preregister your dog for those free contests at marysvillewa.gov or by calling 360-363-8400.

“There will be just lots of fun activities and opportunities to meet dog owners,” said Taylor.

The event is similar in concept but unrelated to Poochapalooza, a former event run by the Marysville Dog Owner’s Group that was canceled in 2019 due to lack of volunteers.

Taylor said the city’s Parks, Culture and Recreation Department was looking at ways to encourage community members to get outside.

“Back in early 2021 we were thinking of ways that we could get people more involved in our parks,” he said.

“At that time I was seeing a lot of people out with their dogs,” and he thought it would be good to build an event for them.

“I hope people will like getting out of the house for a bit,” said Taylor. “We want to help vendors get back on their feet as well."

There will be signs alerting people of the current COVID-19 virus safety guidelines and masks will be available for those who need them, said Taylor.

“We’re going to create what we hope will be a very fun event,” said Taylor, “where we could stay safe and still get out for a day.”

Roy Robinson Subaru is sponsoring the event.

“I hope this is something that we can do every year,” if the event goes well, said Taylor.