It’s a new year – 2019. What does it have in store for dog lovers?
2019 has quite a bit of canine events up ahead, particularly if you’re a dog lover who also likes sports and/or movies. We’ll recap the events that we’ll be keeping on eye on here at Dog O’Day in the coming months, though for sure more will come up as the year progresses.
There’s a little of everything – dog sports like agility and flyball, dog shows galore, dog movies starring actors like Bryce Dallas Howard and Dennis Quaid, even 5Ks and 10Ks that you can run with your favorite pup. Dogs will be at baseball stadiums around the country and service dogs will learn their training at hockey arenas throughout the nation.
In televised events, the 2018 American Kennel Club National Championship presented by Royal Canin will air January 1 at 6 p.m. on Animal Planet; this is the most important and highest-paying dog show in the country. It took place December 15-16 in Orlando, Florida, at the Orange County Convention Center.
The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show presented by Purina Pro Plan will be held at Madison Square Garden in New York City on February 11-12, the most prestigious dog show of the year looks like it will be televised on FS1.
The Beverly Hills Dog Show will take place sometime in March and air on NBC on April 1, no fooling. And then in mid-November the Kennel Club of Philadelphia will host the National Dog Show, the most popular and well-known event to the general public, which will air on Thanksgiving Day (November 28) on NBC.
For those who enjoy running, there is the 5K/10K Dr. Skip Jackson Dog Jog, hosted by the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine on the Purdue campus in West Lafayette, Indiana. The 2019 edition will probably take place in September.
There is also the Race for the Rescues, which is actually several races in the Los Angeles area. It is hosted by the Southern California shelter The Rescue Train. These will likely take place in September or October. Last year there was a fun run, 5K and 10K to choose from, and dogs were welcome, of course.
There will be other dog-friendly races as well throughout the year, and another year of dog-friendly sponsors in the NASCAR world, as Mars, Inc. pet brands will again sponsor Kyle Busch and his Truck Series race team, and Nutri Chomps chews will sponsor Chase Briscoe.
The 2019 edition of the Puppy Bowl, which will be Puppy Bowl XV, will air on Animal Planet on Super Bowl Sunday, which is February 3 this year. The parody of the biggest football game of the year will begin airing around noon and repeat all afternoon until the actual game comes on.
The event’s brilliance comes from the clever editing and writing, turning what is essentially puppies wandering around a small room in confusion into a satire of the pinnacle of America’s favorite sport.
Puppy Bowl XV was filmed over two days last October, and required a crew of about 60 people. It is a terrific awareness raiser for the adoption of shelter dogs, and while the participants will have found forever homes by the special’s airing, there are plenty of others who could use some help.
The major events in agility, rally and obedience will be live-streamed on AKC.tv, which will include the AKC Agility Invitational, the AKC National Tracking Invitational, and the AKC Obedience Classic, in addition to the 2019 AKC National Championship presented by Royal Canin.
The Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge will be held for its 22nd straight year, though the date and location has not been set as of this writing. Likely it will be held in late spring and then air on the NBC family of channels over the summer.
The NAFA CanAm Classic, the biggest tournament in the sport of flyball, will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana in October, which will be the 11th year of the event.
Batdogs like Jake the Diamond Dog or the Myrtle Beach Pelicans’ Slider will entertain fans across minor league baseball stadiums around the country, many teams will host Bark in the Park nights for fans to bring their own pups along, and in hockey there are many service dogs in training with the New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators and others.
In movie news, dogs will again be featured in some of this year’s cinematic creations. A Dog’s Way Home, starring Bryce Dallas Howard (The Village, The Help, Jurassic World) as the voice of a smallish brown dog named Bella, and based on a novel by W. Bruce Cameron, will release to theaters on January 11.
It will also star Edward James Olmos (Alias, Agents of SHIELD), Ashley Judd (Where the Heart Is, Divergent) and Barry Watson (7th Heaven).
A Dog’s Journey, based on another Cameron novel and the sequel to 2016’s A Dog’s Purpose, will come to theaters on May 17. Like the first movie, it will star Dennis Quaid (Any Given Sunday, The Rookie) and Josh Gad (Frozen, Murder on the Orient Express).
June will see The Secret Life of Pets 2, which stars a Jack Russell Terrier named Max, voiced by Patton Oswalt (The Secret LIfe of Walter Mitty, Agents of SHIELD). It will also feature Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family), Kevin Hart (Think Like a Man, Ride Along), Jenny Slate (Parks and Recreation, Given) and Ellie Kemper (The Office, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt).
New streaming service Disney Plus should release in fall, sometime around September, and one of the original projects is a live action remake of the 1955 classic Lady and the Tramp, starring real dogs and Tessa Thompson (Thor: Ragnarok, Creed, Men in Black: International) as the voice of Lady.
Emma Stone is also supposed to be playing Cruella De Vil in a 1980s-set prequel to 101 Dalmatians, though this may not actually happen. If so, it will likely also be slated for Disney Plus.
We’ll cover everything we can this year here at Dog O’Day, and we hope you’ll stick around and join us in celebrating everything dog in 2019. If you haven’t already, be sure to follow us on our Facebook and Twitter pages, we’d love to hear from you!