King Walks The Runway for Heart Disease

By Amy Fernandez

photo ©Getty Images for American Heart Association

I’m up for anything designed to get the purebred message out there. So, last year when The Canine Chronicle was invited to cover the American Heart Association’s Go Red event, I was all in. As I said then, this mashup of high fashion, celebrities, social messaging and dogs is a winning combination and I wondered why someone didn’t do it sooner.

So, Wednesday night we were there for the second anniversary of this great event for a wonderful cause.

Like last year the big lure was the previous year’s Westminster BIS winner strutting the runway with a star of suitable magnitude. This year, Rachel Smith was paired up with King. All of us doggites know King as the star of last year’s Westminster Kennel Club. Among other things, Rachel Smith was Miss USA back in 2007, so two beauties shared the stage.

Her celebrity company for the evening included host Tamron Hall, Paris Hilton, Nicky Hilton Rothschild, Robin Givens, Camille Schrier- the current Miss America, and about 20 others. Shania Twain reprised some of her big hits, too, but she was blown to bits by Darlene Love…oh yes, the beloved veteran of the Spector Wall Of Sound.  She was far and away the best part of the whole night, in my opinion.

The real point of this star-studded evening is to raise awareness about heart disease in women. Obviously, it’s an important cause, and it definitely offered the possibility of a little extra PR for purebred dogs, too.

Last year, I remarked that a celebrity dog on the runway was truly a crowd pleaser; okay, Bo Derek helped –but it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. And it had potential.

They definitely took this message to heart. This year a lot of dog/pet media outlets were invited for a glimpse of King. Of course, we can do that in much more accommodating circumstances-without hanging around the Hammerstein Ballroom for three hours. But we were also promised some celebrity facetime and, truthfully, you couldn’t take a step without tripping over them. My plan was to get a couple of them to call out their favorite breeds or current canine housemates–excellent crossover power. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Maybe next time. We all know you can’t have it all.

So, this was one more outstanding event that not only brought attention to the serious issue of heart disease in women, but also how much we all love our four-legged friends.

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Posted by admin on Feb 7 2020. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.