Founded in 2004, the annual celebration looks to honour dogs of all breeds and help the public recognise the number of four-legged friends that need to be rescued every year.
So we put the call out for the Sunderland Echo readers to introduce us to their paw-some pooches – and hundreds of you got in touch to share treasured photographs and memories of your best pals.
We’ve rounded up just some of the happy hounds into a picture special to mark the celebration in style.
Check out the pictures and add your own to our post on Facebook here. Thank you to everyone who contributed; we’re just sorry we can’t share them all!