Bark the herald angels sing!

A woman strides down a makeshift concourse in an Afghan coat, her flowing blonde hair dwarfed by an enormous Russian fur hat. Trotting alongside her, more cautiously, is a dainty little poodle in a tiara and a pink tutu. The duo look fantastic, but they are not the eventual winners of the “Family Resemblance” prize, perhaps because their aesthetic sensibilities — Disney princess and glamorous villain in a John le Carré novel — are too incongruous. 

Instead, that honour goes to Perry and her chihuahua, the aptly named “Tiny”, who peeks out from the lining of her puffer jacket. Both look delighted. Undeterred by the dreary weather, a sizeable crowd has turned out for the second annual dog show organised and hosted by the Museum of Homelessness, featuring five different award categories (among them “Floofiest Dog” and “Mellowest Mutt”), food and hot drinks, and a tombola.

This year’s participating pooches include an array of costumes: an Airedale terrier dressed as a Viking, a beagle as an elf, a dachshund as a bumblebee, a cockapoo as a spider, some kind of fluffy mutt as Santa Claus, and a black lab as a reindeer, who keeps shaking off his antlers. Though the dogs are well behaved, there’s a more chaotic atmosphere than you’d find at Crufts, with competitors often missing their cues, getting distracted, wandering off in the wrong direction, or failing to respond to the challenges presented by rounds like “Waggiest Tail” or “Loudest Bark”. 

As an organisation, the Museum of Homelessness defies easy categorisation. Housed for the last two years in the former park keeper’s lodge inside Finsbury Park, it functions both as a museum, hosting regular new exhibitions and a permanent collection of objects donated by community members and regular new exhibitions, and as a space providing practical support and advocacy, including its annual publication of the UK’s only record of the deaths of people experiencing homelessness (figures which sadly are increasing year-on-year.)

The site is a community hub used for education and workshops and emergency winter shelter. When not hosting the capital’s most fashionable dogs and their owners, its garden — a tranquil space complete with a pond, insect hotels and vegetable patches — is accessible at all hours, and features what it is probably the only 24/7 hot tap in London, installed after asking people who spent time in the nearby park what they’d find most useful. 

Today’s dog show is raising funds for the organisation’s winter appeal, which provides people with sleeping bags, tents, warm clothing and emergency shelter. Winter is an especially dangerous time to be deprived of shelter, with the majority of deaths last year taking place between January and February. As well as shining a light on the bleak reality of the season, the show was envisioned as a way of “bringing everyone together in the community in a really joyful way”, says volunteer manager Rachel Freeborn, who came up with the idea. While any canine, regardless of their housing status, is welcome to compete, the event is intended as a celebration of dogs who live on the streets. “Having something to love is so important, especially for people who have experienced trauma — it's a lot easier to take care of a dog than it is of yourself,” Rachel adds.

With a string of festive hits playing in the background and baubles hanging from the bare branches of the garden’s trees, the dog show is a jolly affair; the kind of occasion that makes me a little misty-eyed about the real meaning of Christmas…’ The air of unpredictability makes it all the more fun, although I find one experienced professional among the competitors: Emma, the Princess Diana of Kerry Blue Terriers. This status isn’t just due to her regal demeanour, but to her reputation as a successful showgirl who has competed in Crufts. Now, she undertakes a regular programme of good deeds, regularly visiting end-of-life patients, children’s wards in hospitals and even working as a medical detection dog. “She’s quite a busy girl”, says owner Mrs K. The pair have travelled all the way from the Isle of Wight to be here today.

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Numbering around a hundred people, the crowd is a mixture of members of the Museum of Homelessness community, dog lovers of all stripes and some people who happened to be strolling past. I am instantly drawn to the glamour of Mahny Djahanguiri, who is wearing bright red lipstick and an extravagantly fluffy white coat that matches her 13-year-old Maltese, Robbie — imagine a kind-hearted Cruella DeVil. Speaking with a faint Swiss accent, she has a wide-eyed sincerity and theatrical flair as she describes her practice of “doga”,which she has both written a book about and promoted on Britain’s Got Talent (where Robbie peed on David Walliams' shoes). 

The important thing to understand about doga is that it’s not dog yoga. “Dogs don’t need yoga,” she says. Instead, it’s about doing yoga alongside your dog, and recognising their potential as a spiritual healer and “a much more advanced species than humans.” Having previously worked with a youth club in Peckham, Mahny would like to bring the practice of doga to people experiencing homelessness — it’s a highly effective way of decreasing stress, she says — and is planning her own fundraiser to support the community. 

While exploring the museum’s gardens, I come across a large-scale sculpture of a dog, exhibited in the greenhouse especially for today’s event. This is the work of Andrew Omoding, a resident artist at ActionSpace, an independent charity which supports artists with learning disabilities (one of its members, Nnena Kalu, this year won the Turner Prize.). “Dog” is a vibrant and intricate piece created with found objects and discarded materials, such as bicycle parts, branches and twine. While Omoding has never owned a dog himself, he “loves them very much — they’re very friendly and playful.” That affection is evident in the work: contained within its elaborate structure are dog toys, warm fabrics and a bone, and it’s displayed alongside a short story about the sadness and isolation of a dog abandoned at home by its owners. He wrote it, he tells me, to remind people to treat dogs well, to play with them nicely and to take them on holiday.

Today’s winner of a special “Lifetime Achievement” award is Roxy, an eight-year old American staffie. When I meet her after the prizes have been announced she is trotting around the grass, barking with friendly excitement and gazing, adoringly, at her owner Steve*. “She gave me purpose and helped me keep my feet on the ground. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have given up,” he says.

A beloved fixture at the Museum of Homelessness, Roxy recently engaged in some Lassie-esque heroics: on a freezing cold night last week, she found a man who’d passed out on the edge of the site and alerted the team, almost certainly saving the man’s life. Steve has looked after not just Roxy, but four generations of her family, stretching back to her great-great-great-great grandparents. When his wife died three years ago, he walked away from “everything”, he says, from the barge where he lived and his job as the manager of an industrial site, and ended up sleeping on the streets. More than anything else, it was Roxy who helped him to survive this period. “I went backwards in life, I abused street drugs and all that, but she helped me give that up because I knew I’d lose her,” he tells me, speaking with palpable affection and gratitude. 

After a period of living on the street, the pair have recently been housed together in temporary accommodation, but it was a long and challenging process. Roxy is now classed as a medical assistance dog, complete with her very own ID card, which has allowed Steve to bypass the “no pets” rules enforced by most available housing options. Very few emergency shelters accept dogs, which leaves people faced with the choice between turning down a bed or abandoning their closest companion. In Rachel’s experience, it’s vanishingly rare for people to choose the latter, even in extreme weather conditions. Steve says he would rather be homeless than give up Roxy. 

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Like most of what the museum does, the show combines practical support with community spirit. As well as raising over a thousand pounds for the winter appeal, a sum of money which in this context could be literally life-saving, at the end of the day, all dogs are handed a Christmas stocking, containing food, treats and toys.“I think it’s quite commonly appreciated by the British public that homeless people look after their dogs really well – that’s something people observe day-to-day,” says Rachel. “These dogs are so treasured as companions,  protectors and best friends, and today is our way of celebrating that.”