Northampton doggy day care owners create hilarious canine nativity video starring four-legged friends

A Northampton doggy day care has been the set for a hilarious canine nativity play starring all the regular residents.

Meadowview in Pitsford Road, Chapel Brampton - a ‘dog retreat’ - cares for up to ten dogs a day while owners are busy or at work.

Each year the owners of the business raise money for an animal charity, however many fundraising events and ideas have been cancelled due to the pandemic.

Instead, Jane Ovington and her family decided, with the permission of all the pooches’ owners, to create a canine nativity to raise much needed funds for Soi Dog, a charity campaigning to end the dog meat trade in Asia.

Jane said: “This year has been a challenge and Covid has put paid to a lot of things we usually do, but we came up with this little idea and it just grew and grew.

“The girls who work here with me spent ages filming it then I spent several months writing the script.

“I did a brief script before we filmed but we had to keep changing it because of what the dogs did during filming.

“The story developed as filming went along.”

Enlisting as many of the regular retreat dogs as possible, the staff filmed the play complete with costumes in September and October, so Jane’s daughter had time to edit it.

The storyline was based around the traditional nativity, however the additional aspects of Covid and twin princes who could become the ‘King of Meadowview’ are also present.

As well as the modern spin, there were additions created solely by the dogs and how they behaved and reacted to the costumes, which makes for hilarious viewing.

Jane added: “The dogs really chose their own parts as it was purely based on who would keep the costume on.

“Some refused to wear costumes so were villagers on the land, but we tried to include as many as possible.

“Winston the dachshund who plays a prince was so good and filmed all parts in one, but that was not the same for the rest of them.

“It was a nightmare and there was a lot of bribery going on with hot dogs, biscuits and tennis balls.”

Jane is hoping the play, which will be released on the Meadowview Facebook page before Christmas, will go viral to help raise as much money as possible.

“When I first came up with the idea, I looked to see if anyone had done one before,” she continued.

“I found pictures but not videos, so I thought we just have to do it, send it viral and raise as much money for dogs being tortured.”

The video will be released on Facebook by December 14 and Jane will attach a donation link for Soi Dog. She is hoping everyone who watches the play will donate £1 to the charity.

Search Meadowview Dog Retreat on Facebook to find the video when it is released and visit the Soi Dog website to find out more about the charity’s work.

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