For fans of all things, cute, furry, feathery or scaly, the Long Island Pet Expo makes its triumphant return once again on Saturday, March 2nd, and Sunday, March 3rd, at the Suffolk County Community College’s Brentwood campus.
The Long Island Pet Expo is an event centered on…what else? Pets, of course! The event features a plethora of fun and exciting exhibitions and activities regarding learning about and caring for pets of all kinds, from dogs and cats to snakes and spiders, and just about any other thing in-between that can serve as an adorable and comforting little companion to people.
The attractions slated for this year’s Long Island Pet Expo include a dog arena featuring manner of canine performers; the return of the ever-popular cat show, where fluffy felines are judged in what is essentially a glorified beauty contest; an educational reptile show and program; rabbits showing off their agility; a birds of prey show featuring falcons and other flying predators; parrots, and many, many more.
Show promoter Karen Garetano and her husband, Dennis, have been running the Long Island Pet Expo since the two purchased it from the previous promoter back in 2003.
“We try to have a variety of animals there so people can see and learn and have a fun time,” Karen said.
And since pets are a part of the family, attendees are invited to bring their well-behaved leashed pets to the expo as well!
“The majority of pets people bring dogs, of course, but it doesn’t just have to be just dogs,” she said. “Some people bring cats, someone brought a duck once, potbellied pigs…we’ve had all sorts of different types of animals, and people are welcome to bring them, and they enjoy doing so.”
The expo also features a number of vendors selling a variety of pet-related products, as well as others offering pet-centric information and resources, such as the Suffolk County Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and animal rescue and adoption groups. In addition, there are also non-pet product vendors as well, whose inclusion not only offers up some fun and interesting wares, food, and refreshments that attendees can purchase, but whose presence also serves to support the non-profits in attendance as well.
“The non-pet-related vendors actually enable us to be able to give reduced rates and more space to the various rescue and adoption groups that attend the show,” Karen said. “They support our goal of responsible pet ownership and care.”
The Long Island Pet Expo not only fits the bill as a fun and educational family outing, but it’s also extraordinarily affordable as well; adult admission is only $15, children are $6, and kids under the age of three are admitted for free. Individuals not wishing to wait in line to get into the expo can also visit the event’s official website and purchase their tickets in advance instead.
Karen and her husband run a plethora of pet shows, keeping them quite busy throughout the year. The couple have been in the animal promotion business for many years, with Karen initially breeding show dogs and Dennis involved in publishing magazines centered on horses.
“After the magazine, Dennis and his partner started a horse expo in Pennsylvania, and after two years of success with that, they decided to expand it into a horse and pet expo,” Karen said. “However, after a while, the horse part of the expo became very expensive, so eventually the pets took over. We eventually started going to some other locations, and the Long Island Pet Expo in 2003 was run by somebody else, and we bought it from them.”
At that time, The Long Island Pet Expo was being held at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, and Karen and Dennis continued to run the event out of that venue for several years until finally deciding to look for a new location due to affordability issues.
The two looked high and low for a new venue, eventually settling upon its current home- the Suffolk County Community College Brentwood campus, which she said was an ideal location for the event.
“First of all, there weren’t a lot of venues at that time that would accept pets,” Karen said. “In addition, it had everything else that we were looking for, including an abundance of parking spaces, a large enough size to accommodate our events and exhibitions, and of course it was much more affordable.”
Despite animal event promotion being how she and her husband make their living, Karen, noted that – as steadfast animal lovers – being able to bring events such as the Long Island Pet Expo to families year-after-year is an incredibly rewarding experience, and one that the couple hopes to continue doing well into the future.
“Making the Long Island Pet Expo available to people is an incredibly rewarding and enriching experience, or we wouldn’t be doing it,” she said. “One of the main things that keeps us doing it is when the families and their children come, the smiles on their faces that we see really touches us. They have such a wonderful time, and people are constantly telling us how much they’ve enjoyed it and what a great event it is.”
“We have lots of people who come back every single year because they have so much fun, but we also have a lot of new people as well,” Karen continued. “The Long Island Pet Expo is a very important event because not only does it unite pet lovers, but it also helps these people learn about animals as well.”
The Long Island Pet Expo will be this upcoming Saturday, March 2nd, from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and Sunday, March 3rd, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
To find out more about the Long Island Pet Expo, find scheduling information, and to purchase tickets, please visit https://www.familypetshows.com and click on the “Long Island” section.
