Pack your lawn blanket or fold-up chair, leash your furry friend and head to the new NTC Park at Liberty Station on Sunday, March 1 for the inaugural Doggie Street Festival. The free, sponsored event will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the park, located at 2590 Womble St., off Rosecrans Street in Point Loma. In addition to meeting adoptable dogs from more than 30 breed-specific and other shelter and rescue organizations, you’ll be able to peruse booths of canine-oriented merchandise and services and pause for lunch for yourself and snacks for your pooch while enjoying entertainment from two performance stages. Among the offerings are music from The Koalas, an energetic San Diego rock cover band, and 12-year-old award-winning Los Angeles pop musician and animal advocate Gari Geiselman. Disc Dogs will showcase high-flying Frisbee-chasing agility skills, while student fashion designers will escort adopted rescue dogs down the “dogwalk” for a fashion show of handcrafted canine couture.?The Doggie Street Festival will also feature face painting and a canine-themed art area for kids, dog obedience demonstrations, speakers on dog training and even a veterinary booth where potential adopters can consult a veterinarian for healthcare and nutrition information for their new pets.?Silent auction prizes range from dog washes and pet-themed books to restaurant meals, museum passes, overnight stays, theater and Padres tickets and even winery tours.?The festival is the inspiration and “pet” project of award-winning San Diego filmmaker and documentarian Jude Artenstein, producer of the comedy “A Day Without a Mexican” and director and co-writer of the feature film “Love Always.” Artenstein has always loved dogs. While recuperating from a serious accident two years ago, she enjoyed the constant, healing companionship of her golden retriever, Scout, who never left her side. “Before my accident I had been thinking about doing (a film) about dogs, but that helped consolidate the journey. I used the time to read about rescue and dogs,” she explains. The research resulted in “Rescue Me,” a documentary now in production that chronicles the stories of a group of dogs, some lost or abandoned, some at risk of euthanasia in shelters and others rescued and adopted, through five American cities, including San Diego. The creative experience brought Artenstein face to face with the tragedy facing thousands of American pets as a result of the foreclosure crisis, economic meltdown and natural disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Ike.?”While our nation is trying to pull itself out of the doghouse, millions of dogs are just trying to find one,” she says. Rescue organizations, she explains, are overwhelmed with the huge numbers of relinquished or abandoned new arrivals at animal shelters. The Doggie Street Festival is her contribution to help rescue organizations place pets in new “forever” homes and to celebrate the work of the unsung heroes who volunteer their time to help animals. Few people realize, Artenstein explains, that a quarter of all animals in shelters are purebreds. “The heartbeat of the festival — the reason it exists — is to present the public with the extraordinary work of breed-specific rescue groups and to focus on what they do to rehabilitate and place dogs in homes,” she says.?Breed-specific rescue groups will be bringing adoptable dogs to the Doggie Street Festival, including beagles, greyhounds, Chihuahuas, pugs, Labradors, pit bulls, coonhounds, Australian shepherds and spaniels. In addition, FOCAS (Friends of County Animal Shelters), the County of San Diego Department of Animal Services, the San Diego Humane Society & SPCA, Helen Woodward Animal Center, Baja Animal Sanctuary, the Foundation for the Care of Indigent Animals, Friends of Humane Society de Tijuana and the Dog Squad will offer adoptable dogs at the Festival.?The Spay and Neuter Action Project (SNAP) will provide information about their subsidized spay and neutering programs for low-income families and educational materials about responsible pet parenting, in addition to adoptable dogs.?”One thing I hope for the festival is that it will empower the community to get involved in any way they can, even in a small way. Everyone has something to donate that is a direct comfort to the animals. You don’t have to do a giant thing. Every small thing becomes part of the fabric,” Artenstein explains.?For latest information about festival participants, visit the website, www.doggiestreetfestival.org, or call (619) 276-4142.