The Tihar Festival in the Park: Ceremony Goes to the Dogs

dsc_0221

The Tihar Festival takes place in Nepal and is held annually each October. Tihar is a five-day-long festival that signifies the festival of lights, and is considered to be of great importance as it shows reverence to not just the humans and the Gods, but also to the animals like crows, cows and dogs. The second day is called Kukur Tihar or Khichā Pujā (worship of the dogs).

On a rare sunny, October morning – the Portland based non-profit, Core Paws, recreated The Tihar Festival at Wallace Park in Northwest Portland with dogs from a handful of the shelters and rescues the organization partners with throughout the year. Their mission is to help create awareness for hard to place animals (through their Web site where rescues and shelters can highlight the animals they’re having trouble placing with families – this is yet another marketing platform to get the word out about these animals given these organizations often have limited budgets and resources) which was showcased in this intimate 30-minute ceremony with a handful of beautiful dogs and their families. Enjoy the pics!

dsc_0237

dsc_0265

dsc_0271

dsc_0283

Wordless Wednesday early!~

tihar

Pin me!

Share

There are 15 Comments

  1. Lindsay says:

    What a wonderful celebration. I wish we’d do more things of the like here. Looks like a lot of fun! 🙂

  2. HAPPY&HAZEL says:

    This is so amazing! I remember I saw this kind of festival in the news while ago and thought it was so sweet! We would love to attend one if we have one around here. 🙂

  3. Heather Reid says:

    What a great idea this was. That festival looks like so much fun. I agree with Lindsay, I wish they had more things like that here.

  4. What a great way to help the rescues and shelters. Looks like fun.

  5. Emma says:

    It looks like such a happy festival and love the pretty colors!

  6. Kari says:

    How festive!

  7. Jean Dion says:

    Looks like you had wonderful weather for the event—and in Oregon, that’s not always a given!

    Jean from Welcome to the Menagerie