First off, Happy New Year! I hope 2017 brings you joy, happiness and love. Now, did you watch the Rose Parade yesterday? If you did, I hope you saw the Lucy Pet float. I was one of the volunteers who had the wonderful opportunity to help decorate the Lucy Pet float this year.
While at BlogPaws in June last year, my fellow attendee (Jaimi) and I met the Lucy Pet team. Somehow the float was brought up and we were added to the float decoration team. It was a fantastic experience and something I would definitely do again.
Decorating the Float
Jaimi and I drove up to Irwindale bright and early on December 27th. We parked at a designated volunteer lot and then were shuttled over to Fiesta Parade Floats, where the Lucy Pet float was housed (along with several others). As we entered the industrial warehouse area, we walked by past float props and decorations.
When we entered the gigantic warehouse, it was full of volunteers and Fiesta employees. We immediately saw Coppertone the Surfing Dog and had to snap a few pictures. Here she is getting ready to high-five her trainer. Coppertone surfed on the float during the parade along with several other dogs. Ricky the Rescue Cat also rode on the float, but I guess he didn’t feel like surfing. MOL! (And don’t worry, the water on the float was heated for the dogs.)
Since Jaimi and I decorated on the first volunteer day, the float itself was pretty bare. But it was very impressive to see it in person – and also see the before and after.
Jaimi and I were assigned to decorate fish that would adorn the side of the float. We worked on one blue tang fish and two clownfish. So naturally, we said that we decorated Dory, Nemo and his dad Marlin. We painted on glue and then applied black onion seed. And I’ll tell you — it’s harder than it sounds! Just these three fish took us through our entire volunteer shift. The amount of hours that go into float decorating is amazing!
The Big Day!
The Lucy Pet float set two Guinness World Records – longest float and heaviest float in Rose Parade history. The float measured in at 126 feet long and weighed 148,200 pounds! The wave tank was 90 feet long and held 8,000 gallons of water for the surfing dogs.
Hopefully, these Instagram images from Lucy Pet Foundation come through. If not, you can visit their Instagram profile to see shots of the float.
About Lucy Pet Products
Lucy Pet Products, Inc. is a family owned and operated company based in Thousand Oaks, California. Our President and founder, Joey Herrick also founded The Lucy Pet Foundation, whose mission is to reduce pet overpopulation and the euthanasia of over 80,000 cats and dogs per week in the United States. (Source: lucypetproducts.com)
About the Lucy Pet Foundation
The goal of the Lucy Pet Foundation is to have spay/neuter and adoption mobile clinics in every major city in the country. If you do the analysis in just one major city, the numbers are staggering. With one mobile clinic, we can spay and neuter over 120 dogs and cats per week. Doing this 48 weeks of the year means 6,000 animals will be spayed and neutered. This will prevent those animals from adding a minimum of 15,000 new potentially homeless animals to pet overpopulation. By year three it is estimated that we can prevent over 500,000 animals from suffering in that same community with just one mobile clinic. (Source: lucypetfoundation.org)
My next goal should be to actually attend the Rose Parade. Have you ever been to the Rose Parade?
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We watched it for the first time ever yesterday and loved it. It is superior to Macy’s balloons, we were amazed at all the detail in the floats. The Lucy Pet Foundation was a hit.
Amazing! You did a great job on those fish for sure – they are gorgeous! Never been to the parade but good blog friends who are associated with Budweiser designed the flowers for the Budweiser float/hitch in this year’s parade. Wish I’d seen it this year……….darn!
Hugs, Pam
Thanks for this “behind the scenes” look! That float was amazing!
How cool is THAT??!! Figures…yesterday was the first year in YEARS that I missed the Parade. I always watch because of The Property Brothers lol. The past two years they re-tweeted my tweets to them on TV! I bet that was one heck of a pawesome experience doing that! So cool!!
Wow! Bet you never even thought to add that to your bucket list!!! Saw the dogs surfing and so impressed. ConCatulations on being part of the team!! Pawesome!!
We didn’t get to see it but y’all sure did a great job. How cool to participate like that!
WOW.. How absolutely cool that you got to participate! Every year I watch the parade and wonder about the people who do that, and wonder about the floats.. do they end up parking them somewhere after so people can get a closer look? What do they do with all the flowers after the parade??
Yes, they park the floats and people can view them for a day or two after the parade. I think it costs $10. Also something I’d like to do! I don’t know what happens to all the flowers though. It probably depends on how they were adhered to the float. If in water, perhaps donated somewhere. But if glued, maybe composted. I’ll have to ask if I get to volunteer again.
With family in town and stuff going on, I totally missed the Rose Bowl Parade, but saw the game! Nice work you did with those mustard seeds; what a great float!
I saw the surfing dogs and couldn’t believe it! Very cool and the dogs looked happy!
OMC, that is an amazing float! And how fun that you got to help create it. I didn’t watch the parade, but I wish I had seen at least this part.
We did not watch the parade…but how cool that you got to help decorate the Lucy Pet Foundation float! What a great organization!
Happy New Year!
We didn’t see the parade either. Wish they did reruns….we’d watch then. What a pile of work goes on that we never usually think about. You did an awesome job,
Jean
Whoa! Pretty amazing. We didn’t see the float but read about it on another blog. Those fish look humungous! Good job!
Dat’s really amazin’ awnty Rachel. We don’t watch parades, but you can say you had a hand in history. :) Big hugs
Luv ya’
Dezi and Raena
We did watch the parade and saw the float. We also saw the kitty sitting in someones lap!
Wow! That’s an incredible float! (An incredible surf?) Those fish are amazing too. I’m jealous. I’m not usually into parades … but helping decorate a float sounds like a lot of fun (and work!) :)
Oliver here,
The Tribe of Five is extremely annoyed. This is the FIRST year that the humans didn’t watch the parade and we missed the Lucy float. HIss! The female human also said that she’s quite jealous that your human got to work on the float. Happy New Year from your friends in the cold northwest!
What a wonderful float and amazing experience that must have been! Great work!
I watched! The Rose Parade is my favorite parade of the year and Lucy’s float was amazing. What an incredible experience that must have been to work on the float!
What an awesome opportunity! I saw some of the photos but didn’t know about the Guinness World Records – Pawesome!
We haven’t seen the Rose Parade, but it must have been a pawsome event and such a great one too! Pawkisses for a Happy and Healthy New Year to you all…can I now have a fishy :D <3
Happy New Year Chatty Cats and thanks so much fur sharing today’s post, we love it!
Happy Sunday
Purrs
Basil & Co xox
That’s the only float I saw… for the surfing dogs!
I always consider volunteering to decorate floats – then remember that it’s usually chilly work and change my mind. Congrats to you for actually doing it and being part of the parade prep!