History of Pup Pride Flag

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Text and images from http://www.humanpups.com/ If you would like the original template images, please visit this site.

This is the design Pup Flip Gray used to make the Puppy Pride Flags and Puppy Pride Decals used by the Tampa Leather Club, the Tampa Bay Leather Sir & Leather boy Contest, the Saint Petersburg Pride Parade, the Florida Leather n Fetish Pride Event and it is the official Puppy Pride flag of International Puppy.

The Puppy Pride Flag is similar to the 7 stripe design created by Jeff Hull (Grungepup Jeff) but like the first Puppy Pride Flag with the centred Red Doberman Head, this design has all 9 Black, Blue and White stripes from the Leather Pride Flag created by Tony DeBlase that is a symbol for the leather community, which encompass those who are into leather, Levi’s, SM, BD, uniform, cowboys, rubber, and other fetishes. Unlike previous flags, the White Stripe in this design is 1.5 times wider than the other stripes to represent the broadness of the puppy community and as in Grungepup’s design, the stripes are set on a 30 degree diagonal reminiscent of the boy flag designed by Keith P. to indicate a new direction. Like Grungepup’s design, the blood Red Bone in the centre is reminiscent of the puppy pride flag designed by Kirk “Brue” Pierce which replaced the red heart of the Leather Pride Flag with a centred red bone since the original Puppy Pride Flag with the centred red Doberman head was too breed specific (see Brue’s original note below). However, the centred red bone used in this design is larger to be more prominent and represents the unconditional, non-judgemental heart of the puppy.

Pup Flip Gray released this design to public domain so it can be used and reproduced royalty free for private or commercial use. Feel free to copy and use it.

~ Pup Flip Gray (LeatherPup) May 10, 2011

Colours Used:
Royal Blue (PANTONE: Reflex Blue 2X – CMYK 100,73,0,2 – RGB 23,23,150)
Red (PANTONE: 1788 2X – CMYK: 0, 84, 88, 0 – RGB: 235, 38, 41)
Black (PANTONE: Black 6 2X – CMYK: 0, 0, 0, 100 – RGB: 0, 0, 0)
White (CMYK: 0, 0, 0, 0 – RGB: 255, 255, 255)

~ Original note from Kirk “Brue” Pierce

I am going to throw a little history lesson into this pup pride flag discussion:

Over 25+ years ago when I started exploring my pup journey my first experience in identifying myself was as a gay leather man in my early childhood. Growing up I always had a pup (Dog) soul. I never really identified as a bear (even though I am very hairy) or as a member of the Imperial Court system (even though I worked/volunteered with them) or as a pan-sexual (even though I belonged to many groups/friends) or any of the other organizations I belonged to that have come and gone since but as a gay leather man and finally over time as a gay leather Dog. So it was natural for me to embrace the leather pride flag that Tony DeBlase created as a symbol I could relate to in the beginning when it first came out and even more so over the decades.

But even though I identified with the leather pride flag it still was missing something, a complete representation of myself. Over a decade ago I had come across a design with a red dog head on the leather pride colors but something did not feel right about it. The main thing I did not like about it was the dog head looked like a Dobermans head and I did not identify myself as a Doberman. I tried to imagine another dog head but each one was too defining to a particular breed and there was no generic all encompassing dog head I could think of. And I didn’t want to use a paw as the bear community already had been using that particular image as their symbol representation.

So I thought what simple symbol would be universally recognized around the world that is associated with dogs? Then it became obvious, a dog bone. So I took out the red heart and added a red dog bone to the center of the leather pride colors. Now I had a symbol I could identify with as a leather dog that did not discriminate based on a dog breed and that would be visually translatable around the world. I also always liked Tony DeBlase’s description regarding the colors he choose “I will leave it to the viewer to interpret the colors and symbols.”

Initially only a few friends knew about my leather dog pride design but little by little people saw the design and remarked that they liked it. My friends at Leather Creations where I worked at the time when I created the concept encouraged me to pursue getting it out to the public. In the beginning they copyrighted it for me to help protect it from being misused and helped me get it made into a 3’x5′ fabric flag, leather armband, a few embroidered t-shirts and eventually I had pins made. I admit I have never really pushed the leather pup/Dog pride symbol I had created to be universally accepted but overtime it seems it is being embraced.

Now in more recent years it has been redesigned by having the stripes go sideways with new interpretations. But it still makes me smile to see the red bone symbol being used and widely identified, accepted as a pup symbol.

In the end what matters to me the most is find out who you are and how you convey yourself, your pup/dog soul or Handler/Trainer skills. This is what is truly important to help make our community a safe and healthy space.

Please remember there are many ways to convey your pup/dog interest that even if none of the current or available pup/Dog logo designs work for you, find something that does. Be true to yourself, your soul, as each of our pupdom journeys are different from everyone else’s.

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