KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) - A parade of almost 200 dachshunds has begun New Year's Eve celebrations in the Florida Keys.
Participants in Monday's Key West Dachshund Walk included canines costumed as a bride and groom, wieners in buns, ballerinas, Santa and a "desperate housedog."
A dachshund named Pepperini wore a gown and rode in a replica red high-heel shoe, spoofing Key West's midnight New Year's Eve "drop" of a female impersonator in a large red woman's shoe.
Four other warm-weather takeoffs on New York's Times Square ball drop are also set in the Keys.
They include a manmade conch shell lowered outside Sloppy Joe's Bar, a pirate wench descending a sailboat's mast, a faux Key lime wedge splashing into a giant margarita glass and a replica sailfish dropping at an Islamorada hotel.