DUNEDIN, Fla. — If you're ever in downtown Dunedin you've probably stopped by the dog mural on the side of Skip's Bar.
The project started in May 2010, 11 years ago, when the owner of the bar, Skip, and local artist Anna Fields were looking for a way to help an animal rescue.
"It also became a community project, because every one of these is someone's animal. So they paid to have it done. And then I donated money back to our local rescues," explains Fields.
Just about everyone stops to check out the dogs, even if it's not one of theirs.
"But the people love it because it's everyone is an individual and it has their name," says Fields. "It's not like just a plain white dog. It's your white dog. I see kids lined up to look at the animals and look at their names, and they find one that looks like their animal. So it's fun. And I see people taking pictures, I love it."
Fields added, "But it also created, some of them are memorials. So I see people come and visit their animals and, you know, kind of give a little reflection in that. So it means a lot to that too."
For a while, Fields would add dogs to the mural but that stopped about a year and a half ago. She does touch up the ones that are already there.
In the meantime, she hopes to find a new wall because her waiting list is long.
"It means so much to people, especially the new people moving to town, that name has become so popular that eventually, I will find a way to have a new wall or add or to somehow create this again. But as it stands right now, like Skips is an old building and I want to keep it you know touched up. And you can see it's faded a little bit and I'm going to work on that. But it definitely created a life of its own and people get very excited about it. So I will work on I'm trying to start a new project with this," says Fields.
You can read more about Murals for Mutts, byclicking here.
