Searching for Snowdogs in Cardiff Bay – Snowdogs: Tails in Wales
Yesterday I took Littlest Boy I into town on a hunt for Snowdogs. We had such a fantastic day and found 12 in around an hour and a half. You can read more about our adventures here. Today, Little Miss E, 7, Little Man O, 6, and Cardiff Daddy joined us as we went hunting for more Snowdogs around Cardiff Bay.
There are 43 Snowdogs and 57 Snowpups across Cardiff, Cardiff Bay, Penarth, and Barry Island. The trail officially opened today, Saturday 16th September, and runs for 10 weeks until 26th November. Based on Raymond Briggs’ famous character from The Snowman and the Snowdog, the dogs are raising money for for Tŷ Hafan, the children’s hospice of Wales, in Sully. Tŷ Hafan is one of the UK’s leading paediatric palliative care charities and offers comfort, care and support to life-limited children and their families.
Every year, Tŷ Hafan has to raise £4million to provide it’s free service to families in Wales. All the dogs come with an important message that you can help by texting WOOF to 70660 to donate £3.
Text costs £3 plus network charges. Tŷ Hafan receives the full £3.
Our day started off at The Red Dragon Centre where we had been invited to meet Oscar the golden Snowdog as part of our role as blogger ambassadors for the centre.
Lucky Oscar was living up to his name with a visit from Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn lookalikes. Unlocking Oscar on the app will reveal a reward of a 20% discount for participating Red Dragon Centre venues. You can read more about our visit here or check out the Cardiff Mummy Says Instagram Stories feed or Twitter.
I was also interviewed by Made in Cardiff, the local television station, for a forthcoming show about the Snowdogs. I’ll keep you posted when it’s going to be screened.
Also at The Red Dragon Centre are seven Snow Pups: three in Cadwalders and four in the Odeon cinema. Whereas the main Snowdogs have been designed by artists the Snowpups have been created by local schools and community groups, each with their own distinctive pattern. Stanley, with the fidget spinner patterns was a real hit with my children.
From there we headed off around the Bay where we found another seven dogs.
We saw on Twitter that we’d just missed Gio Compario posing for photos next to his lookalike dog Baffi, who sits outside Wales Millennium Centre. Baffi looked fantastic and the kids had great fun singing the Go Compare song to him.
From there we saw Swirly Whirley in Mermaid Quay. I loved Rachel Blackwell’s design featuring famous landmarks from Cardiff Bay. If you can recognise them all you can enter a competition on their website for a chance to win £60 to spend at Wagamama Cardiff Bay.
We loved Sun Dog with his chef’s hat at Mount Stuart Dock, and heart-covered Hygge outside the Pierhead building.
There’s a pack of Snowpups inside the Pierhead building but unfortunately it was closed when we were there so we’ll have to save meeting them for another day.
Snowbrador sits outside the Norwegian Church, while Honolulu is at Porth Teigr. This black and gold glitzy Snowdog is designed by Julien Macdonald, the fashion designer who was born in Merthyr.
We made it to the first Snowdog on Cardiff Bay Barrage – Heatwave, near the play area. Miss E absolutely loved this one. Heatwave is covered in thermodynamic liquid crystal ink so as the temperature around him changes his coat transforms from luxurious deep black with a subtle sparkle through to a rainbow of colours in the sunshine. Needless to say we didn’t see any rainbow colours!=
My poor kids were exhausted by this point so we decided to call it a day. Further along the Barrage is That Snow Tiger, while Life’s A Beach is at Penarth Marina. (I’m super excited about this one because it was designed by my childhood friend Emma Everitt, who paints the most amazing pictures of Barry.)
One thing that made me sad though was just how many children I saw climbing all over the Snowdogs. Each one has a sign on it which clearly says “Please Do Not Climb”. Please remember that hundreds of children climbing on them will cause damage that might not be repairable. Please let’s look after the Snowdogs!
After a short delay the app is now available on Apple iOS. I’ve downloaded it and have inputted all the codes from all the dogs we’ve seen. It’s worth getting the app because certain Snowdogs allow you to unlock rewards and offers upload photos to the virtual gallery and vote for your favourite dog. Plus the 99p goes to support Ty Hafan.
Don’t forget to donate £3 by texting WOOF to 70600.
20 Snowdogs spotted so far! We can’t wait to find the rest!
Have you spotted any Snowdogs yet? I’d love to see your photos either in the comments below on the Cardiff Mummy Says Facebook page or you can tweet me on @cardiffmummy or tag @cardiffmummysays on Instagram.
This is such an important cause. The response to yesterday’s article was incredible. Do please keep the momentum going and spread the word to the people of South Wales and help raise as much money as possible for Ty Hafan.
And remember: NO CLIMBING ON THE SNOWDOGS!
Oh I love these so much! My kids would love to go on a search for the Snowdog. I think a trip to Cardiff Bay is on the cards x
I didn’t know I needed to collect plaque codes to unlock them in the trail. Is there anyway to unlock by uploading a photo instead?