Hopefully you’ve not been on Santa’s ‘Naughty List’ this year and as an early Christmas present from us here, we want to tell you all about a most brilliant event we recently attended!! Yay! We’re the ‘gift’ that keeps on giving! Well maybe not, but hopefully you’ll like reading this all the same! We love Christmas. We love dogs (obviously!!) so it is safe to say we were in our element when we attended the fabulous All Dogs Matter, Santa Paws Christmas Fair in London! Join us today as we take you around this event held in aid of a brilliant cause (and we can promise lots of cute dog photos too!!) Leave your Christmas wrapping for 5 minutes, grab a glass of mulled wine or mince pie and let us get you feeling even more festive and tell you all about it…

Held at The Garden Gate in Hampstead (which, is well worth a visit if you haven’t been!) we were greeted by a steady stream of dogs large and small (and their humans!) all waiting to get their paws inside THE Christmas event of the year!! With Santa’s Little Helpers to welcome us with a goody bag, lots of smiles and a snow flurry of wagging tails in front of us, we knew immediately this was going to be lots of fun. What’s the first thing you want to see when trying to track down Santa Paws??! His grotto of course! Luckily the very talented Ian Morrison from Dogstar Photo was on hand to take photos of dogs and their humans inside Santa’s Grotto. Surrounded by all things Christmassy and yummy treats on sale nearby from Lily’s Kitchen, surely this is the best Grotto ever?!!

As we walked further into the Christmas fair we saw many dogs who came dressed to impressed!! Lots of Christmas jumpers and outfits were on show and even some of us humans also joined in the fun too. We had to share a selection of some of our favourites below including the gorgeous Teddy the Staffy (who has met The Queen!) and his lovely family Sonia and Simon as well the famous Attlee from the book Phileas Dogg.

Once we had finished gawking at all the dogs (well we at least managed to strain our heads upwards for a few minutes!) we bumped into old friends and made new ones too. Do you remember our friends The Pet Deli from one of our blogs in October, as shown here? They were there with an assortment of yet more yummy treats (scrumptious turkey & cranberry bites are at the ready for Ted and Millie on Christmas Day!) On hand was the lovely Val from Vals K9 Training who was great to finally meet and there were also many stalls including Broughton & Co, Baker & Bray, Hownd and Marlene’s Gang to name but a few. There were also charity stalls from The Mayhew, Nowzad and of course All Dogs Matter where we bought some of the dogs favourite treats from Beautiful Joes. Delicious and for every one bought, Beautiful Joes donate a pack to All Dogs Matter. Perfect!

Not only were there great stalls for you to buy gifts for your dog (and even your friends!) there was even a raffle and great prizes, with the fabulous Peter Egan doing the honours to select the winners. Michelle Collins, Patron for All Dogs Matter, was also there with her ex ADM dog, Humphrey. Great to see so much support for this inspiring charity. Walking on our way back to the car, we felt incredibly festive (not a Scrooge or Grinch in sight!) plus it was a great feeling knowing we had contributed to All Dogs Matter, as all funds raised from the event go toward them helping dogs across London, Norfolk and surrounding areas. We know you may or may not have been at the event, but if you’re feeling festive and fancy donating a little to help All Dogs Matter so they can continue their marvellous work, you can do so HERE.

A huge WELL DONE to All Dogs Matter for a fabulous event. We can’t wait to attend many more in 2016!! The perfect event to round off 2015. Here are a few more cuties from the day. We think Santa Paws will definitely be dropping a few gifts off for these lovely boys and girls (especially ex-ADM dogs Dashy the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and Monty the Labrador as well as Indie the spaniel belonging to Luke Berman from The Mayhew). Wishing everyone who we met and attended the event (and all you lovely lot reading this) a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!