The Walk of Fame is a planned tribute to famous dogs in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The initial six inductees will be announced in November 2007. The honours are sponsored by The Kennel Club

The Kennel Club

The Kennel Club is a kennel club based in London and Aylesbury, United Kingdom.The Kennel Club registration system divides dogs into seven breed groups. The Kennel Club Groups are: Hound, Working, Terrier, Gundog, Pastoral, Utility and Toy...

 and television channel Sky Movies

Sky Movies

Sky Movies is the collective name for the premium subscription television movie channels operated by Sky Television, and later British Sky Broadcasting. It has around 5 million subscribers, via satellite, cable and IPTV in the UK and Ireland...

.

Candidates include Lassie

Lassie

Lassie is a fictional collie dog character created by Eric Knight in a short story expanded to novel length called Lassie Come-Home. Published in 1940, the novel was filmed by MGM in 1943 as Lassie Come Home with a dog named Pal playing Lassie. Pal then appeared with the stage name "Lassie" in six...

, Toto

Toto (dog)

Toto is the name of a fictional dog in L. Frank Baum's Oz series of children's books, and works derived from them. The name is pronounced with a long "O", a homonym of "toe toe". The dog was originally a cairn terrier drawn by W.W. Denslow for the first edition of the Wizard of Oz...

 from The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...

, cartoon dog Gromit, and Tintin

Tintin (character)

Tintin is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Tintin is the protagonist of the series, a reporter and adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy....

's companion, Snowy. Some of the candidates are fictional and some are no longer living. There are 15 dogs being considered.

The tribute is not the first to honour dogs. The Hollywood Walk of Fame

Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

 includes three dogs, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin

Rin Tin Tin

Rin Tin Tin was the name given to a dog adopted from a WWI battlefield that went on to star in twenty-three Hollywood films. The name was subsequently given to several related German Shepherd dogs featured in fictional stories on film, radio and television.-Origins:The first of the line Rin Tin...

, and Strongheart

Strongheart

Strongheart was the screen name of Etzel von Oeringen , a German Shepherd that became one of the earliest canine film stars. After being trained in Germany as a police dog, he was brought to the United States by husband and wife filmmakers Laurence Trimble and Jane Murfin, who had previously worked...

. Laika

Laika

Laika was a Soviet space dog that became the first animal to orbit the Earth – as well as the first animal to die in orbit.As little was known about the impact of spaceflight on living creatures at the time of Laika's mission, and the technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, there...

, a dog sent into orbit by the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, is commemorated by a plaque at a Moscow research center as well as depicted in a monument dedicated to fallen cosmonauts at Star City. Several war dog memorials honouring dogs which participated in previous war efforts, exist at the United States Marine Corps War Dog Cemetery in Guam

Guam

Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...

, March Air Force Base in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, and the National Infantry Museum

National Infantry Museum

The National Infantry Museum is a museum located in South Columbus, Georgia, just outside Fort Benning, the home of the Infantry. The museum honors the history of infantry forces in the United States Army.The museum is in size and cost $107 million to build...

 in Fort Benning

Fort Benning

Fort Benning is a United States Army post located southeast of the city of Columbus in Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties in Georgia and Russell County, Alabama...

, Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

. The planned Walk of Fame is not the first of its kind in the United Kingdom either. There is an "Avenue of the Stars" in Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

, London honouring over 100 actors and actresses.

Announcing the proposed tribute, Kennel Club Secretary Caroline Kisko said, "To immortalize these dogs within Battersea Park, a place intrinsically linked to dogs itself, is very important to the Kennel Club and promotes the importance of dogs within our lives".

Location

Permanent plaques for each inductee will be placed in Battersea Park

Battersea Park

Battersea Park is a 200 acre green space at Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth in England. It is situated on the south bank of the River Thames opposite Chelsea, and was opened in 1858....

 in London, which is on the south bank of the River Thames

River Thames

The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

. The former Battersea Dogs Home, now called the Battersea Dog and Cats Home, Britain's largest home for abandoned dogs is situated nearby and a well-known landmark.

Judging panel

Ian Lewis, Director of Sky Movies; Sarah Wright, Editor of Your Dog; James Christopher, Film Critic from The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

; and Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club Secretary are among the panel.