Saturday’s LovePup Family Festival promises a half-day of cute critters, food, drinks and kids’ activities. It’s courtesy of the LovePup Foundation and a variety of sponsors — and its roots lie in the plight of one homeless Chihuahua.

The LovePup Foundation was founded by Johnjay and Blake Van Es, who live in the Phoenix area. Fans in Colorado Springs know Johnjay from “The Johnjay & Rich Show,” which airs weekdays on My 99.9 FM; the morning radio show celebrated its 20th anniversary last year.

Johnjay was on the air one day in 2014 when he got a message from a listener about a stray Chihuahua found in an alley near the Van Es home. He alerted Blake, who rescued the pooch and sent photos to Johnjay.

“Not really knowing anything about the rescue world, I took the pictures she sent me and posted them on social media,” he says. That resulted in a flood of people volunteering to take the dog. Johnjay and Blake fostered the Chihuahua until Johnjay chose one family for the dog’s permanent home and met them in a parking lot.

“When the Chihuahua saw the family and the family saw the Chihuahua, it was like this magical moment,” he recalls. “It was beautiful. They connected and it was fabulous. And I went on the air the next day and I said, ‘Man, I’ve set up five people on dates, and those five people ended up getting married, and I’m better with matching people with dogs than I am with people.’ The next day I started getting inundated with people like, ‘I found this stray dog,’ ‘My grandmother is going into a home, can you take her dogs,’ or ‘We have to rehome our dogs, we got kicked out.’”

So Johnjay started bringing those dogs home until he could find permanent homes for them; the family soon had dogs in every room of the house — up to 30 dogs at one point. Johnjay and Blake went on to form LovePup, an official 501©(3) dog rescue organization; early last year, they opened a kennel in a building they’re renting 10 minutes from their home.

Some rescue groups criticized their informal efforts early on, Johnjay says. Now the LovePup Foundation works with other rescues in staging the LovePup Family Festival, which has been held in a handful of cities and is being eyed for many more.

“My thought process,” Blake says, “was we’re all in this for the same reason, right, to save dogs. Why can’t we all just get along and do an event and let’s have all the rescues.” So at the Springs fest, at least 10 other rescues will be involved, including All Breed Rescue and Teller County Animal Shelter.

Colorado Springs’ first LovePup Family Festival was in 2019; while it was intended to be annual, it was absent the past two years because of the pandemic. The Springs festival will be LovePup’s first public event since COVID hit, Johnjay says.

“It’s good to be back,” he says. He’ll be there, along with Blake and his radio partner, Rich Berra. And along with the usual types of pets up for adoption, there will be farm animals too, Blake noted.

Admission is free with the donation of a pet-related item; those donations go to the local rescues.

“It’s a lot of fun,” says Johnjay. “It’s just a great environment.”