Celebration in Animal Friendly Shopping Mall in Guangzhou,China
Guangzhou World Animal Day was celebrated on 7th November in Di Wang shopping mall (the first shopping mall in Guangzhou that openly welcomes pet cats and dogs to walk in). Ten Professor Paws and Dr Dogs attended and an estimated 5000 people were involved.
There is a funny “festival” among young people in China, it is called “Single People Festival” (Guang Gun Jie 光棍节) which is on 11/11 (as 1111 looks like 4 single people).
So World Animal Day in Guangzhou is also a pre-celebration for the 11/11. Whether single or not, everyone is welcome to join our World Animal Day campaign to interact closely with our 10 lovely dogs – hug them, kiss them or even take them for a short walk! A visitor was attracted by our dogs and told us: “who needs a girlfriend when you have such lovely company.”
At the event, we put up a huge screen to show our video “Cats and Dogs’ Welfare among Us”. The video is divided into 5 chapters that demonstrates practical knowledge such as: what is cat and dog’s welfare, how to be a responsible pet owner, how to interact with dogs correctly and why should we not eat cats and dogs. The public showed great interest in the video and asked their children to sit down so they could watch it together. After the video, we had a quick quiz about the content and the children who gave the correct answers received small souvenirs from us.
When the quiz was over, our dogs came up to the stage where they interacted with public. Children played with the dogs under professional instruction from staff of Animals Asia. They got to practice the knowledge they learnt from the video with real dogs and were hugely delighted that they had made friends with dogs. Our Professor Paws and Dr Dogs were so popular they caused great excitement amongst the crowd that had gathered.
We also invited children from Qizhi Special Children School and volunteers from YMCA to give us a wonder African Drum and singing performance.
Finally we presented awards to organizations and individuals that constantly support our work. We thank everyone who contributes to improve the welfare of cats and dogs in China.
- Contact Email: ivoryke@animalsasia.org
- Organised by: Ivory Ke