Hi Guys,
We thoroughly enjoyed DogFest at Cholmondeley Castle in Cheshire, therefore we wanted to write a blog about it. We will write about what we got up too, who we met, the different brands that were there and some more.
We are not part of a brand, as most people who have blogs are normally quite biased about what they have to say. Therefore, we will talk about the event in general not focusing on one person.
Getting There
We don’t live too far away from Cholmondeley, the drive only took us around 15 minutes which was brilliant. Once we got there, it made me chuckle as I used to travel to and from Nottingham which passes Cholmondeley every weekend for over 7 years, I still had never heard of Cholmondeley.
We arrived at DogFest at 9:30am which is the time it opened, this made it easy to get in as there was no queue. I couldn’t believe the sheer size of the castle and its grounds, it’s such an impressive place. I would even say it’s worth a visit when DogFest isn’t on, it costs £7 per adult. Visit their site on the link here: Cholmondeley Castle
Moving back to DogFest, we parked up, Snap as always is super eager to get out of the car and start exploring. When we opened the back, Snap jumped out and was overwhelmed by all the dogs around. He simply didn’t know who to go and sniff first and was super excited. I thought at this rate, he will be knackered by 11am.
The Start of DogFest
We passed through the entrance to DogFest, under the big DogFest banner there were the food stalls and to the right was a bridge which headed over to the stalls and activities.
Once we got over the bridge, we were greeted by the huge Guru Pet Food Stall, the stall I must say was the best-looking stall out of all the stalls. When I approached the stall, I instantly recognized a few Instagram dogs. Just at the Guru Pet Food stall, there was Flossie, Ruby & Martha, Adorable cockers and Harley & Raffles. There were some serious famous pups at that moment, I must say I most certainly was nervous about meeting them all and their owners. It turned out the owners were all really lovely, smiley and easy to talk to, well, we all have the same interests I suppose, Dogs. I couldn’t believe how bouncy Martha was, especially when you have seen their pics from their Instagram it got me questioning how on earth they get such good photos.
Once we got to meet a few of these awesome Instagram pups, we moved on to have a look around the rest of DogFest. There were a few brands I really wanted to go see, some were Guru, Pitpat, Hugo & Hudson, and Scrumbles. I won’t go into the ins and outs of these brands as I will (or maybe) do that another time, but overall they were such lovely people. We actually used Pitpat as our base, as it was opposite the hound hangout.
Hound Hangout
After looking around the stalls, the time was ticking by and it was getting closer to the first session of the Hound Hangout which started at 11:35am. Snap wasn’t part of this session but we still wanted to see the rest of the dogs like Polly (our fluffy family) and Anuko the Husky. So we walked back to meet everyone. Everyone was so lovely as we all chatted about dogs, Instagram and met some people who wanted to meet us. We met Hannah, who works for DogFest and managed the DogFest Instagram page. She gave us a goodie bag each, with treats, samples, water, DogFest t-shirt and much more. We had loads of photos taken, I didn’t get many, unfortunately.
It was now lunchtime, there were so many dogs around DogFest, I would say around 500 with their dog mad owners. We had a burger from the food stalls and shared some of the beef with Snap as he was looking up at us with sad puppy eyes because he was super hungry. We sat on the grass as the food stalls were so busy, with it being lunch time, and there were no seats.
The Hound Hangout we were invited to by DogFest started at 1:35pm. There was Harley & Raffles, Flossie, who are all related and Snap. Everyone was super lovely, we greeted each other with no idea what each of our names was so just called each other by our dog’s name. We really enjoyed the Hand Hangout, getting loads of photos at ‘Noel Ark’ and meeting the owners of the dogs from Instagram.
We also met dogs who knew Snap from Instagram, that was super lovely. Cooper & Fozzie (cooper_fozzie_doodles) and Ozzie (doodleozzie) were both lovely. Snap and Ozzie were bouncing around super excited playing for a while. Just wanted to give them a shout out, so go check them out on Instagram.
DogFest Instagram Take Over & Meeting of Professor Noel Fitzpatrick
At 2pm Hannah, the DogFest Instagrammer asked us to take over the DogFest Instagram page, we were allowed to put up 10 pics to the story, and post 1 pic to the Instagram page. The phone data signal at Cholmondeley Castle was terrible, but Flossie told us that they found some signal behind the toilets. So straight after saying goodbye to the Instagram dogs at Noels Ark, we headed straight to the loos to complete the takeover.
Whilst we were waiting for our time, we came across Professor Noel Fitzpatrick!! We couldn’t believe it, I ran over and asked to get a pick with him. He was in a super rush, rushing to go and do a speech somewhere so we had to be quick. I swept Snap off the floor and Peter took the photo of us all on his phone. I was a little disappointed that Noel wasn’t looking at the camera properly as he was in a rush, but still, we managed to meet him and get a photo.
For the Instagram takeover, I sat down with Snap and did a couple of videos telling everyone about Snap and asking them whether they’re having a great time at DogFest like we are. We posted up the pic of Noel with us and also a pic of Snap sat down flaunting his Instagram neckerchief.
Snap was pooped out, all the running about after dogs and getting pictures taken of him, we decided to call it a day. We went home shortly after that, but we still had the next day to go (Sunday).
Day 2 of DogFest 2018
This will be a short one, as I have blabbered on a little too much on the 1st day…
On day 2, we didn’t want to be part of the Hound Hangout as we wanted to plod along at our own pace and review all the shops and actually buy some stuff. This day we did some of the activities that DogFest held.
I entered Snap into a ‘Cool Pup’ contest, were he sat proudly in his union jack neckerchief. We couldn’t believe how many people were entered into the contest, and it literally took forever for the judges to come around. When it was finally our turn, the judges didn’t seem too pleased, they seemed as if they had already made there mind up and didn’t spend much time with Snap. So, yeah, we didn’t win the competition, doesn’t matter how could you when your against dogs who were massively trained being held by 5-year-old kids? Sympathy vote, Fixed etc. HA!
The other activities we joined ware The Great Dog walk. Wow, such an amazing experience, 100s of people walking their dogs at the same time. There were two options to walk they were, 2km or 4km which isn’t exactly far but was super fun.
We bought Snap a new lead whilst we were there, the extendable one doesn’t look very nice at all in the pics. The lead only cost us £10, which is good as I want to look somewhere else for one. I, however, do love the colour as it compliments Snaps fur colour really well.
We also bought some Huxley Hound treats, we got a photo with the stall and had a chat with the people who owned the brand. When they asked what Snaps name was an I told them they instantly recognised him from Instagram.
Overall
If you’re a dog lover, you’ll love it at DogFest. There is so much to do, we needed the two full days to get round to do everything. There are so many stalls, and what is really nice is that the stalls aren’t all big brands but loads of small brand who are looking for customers. Everyone is super friendly, with all the same interests and we loved it, it’s a shame we cant go to all of them around the UK. We are looking forward to next year, hopefully, Snap will have calmed down a little by then.
Thank you so much for having us, and thank you for reading my DogFest article.
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