Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Category: Conventions

September 19, 2026

Furry Studies third academic conference planned for Australia, call for proposals

by Dogpatch Press Staff

Welcome to guest Zeldstarro, a semi-furred dragon that likes geography and travel and also writes about furry event mapping. 

You may remember Dogpatch Press previously reporting on Furry Studies and their two international conferences, held in the Netherlands in 2024, then Washington State in the US in 2025. For those who don’t remember, or are stumbling into this post, Furry Studies is an academic conference that aims to add more research from and about the fandom, as well as opening more research avenues more generally. Unlike Furscience, which is a group of researchers that conducts its own research, Furry Studies instead hosts or publishes research. Think about it like panels in a furry convention – while Furscience (for example) may host a panel at, say, 4pm on Saturday, Furry Studies would be responsible for booking the meeting room with the venue itself.

The next conference will take place in July 2027, on the Wednesday and Thursday preceding Aurawra, a furry convention. More specifically, it will be in Parramatta (basically Sydney) in New South Wales, Australia (with online streaming). Since Aurawra’s exact dates are yet to be determined, the same holds true for Furry Studies.

However, the “Call for Proposals” is in effect and is on the Furry Studies website! This year’s theme is Feeling the ‘fur’.

The first theme in 2024 was What does it mean to be furry?, and the second year focused on furry worldbuilding on the global stage. For the third iteration, Furry Studies asks: “How do furries use fursuits, fursonas, and the feeling of ‘fur’ to navigate identity, belonging, and collective creativity?”

Put briefly, there are two main categories for proposals: academic papers and community talks.

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June 29, 2026

Anthroverse Vice Chair forced to resign, retract false claims in Mephit Furmeet zoophile coverup.

by Patch O'Furr

Admission of wrongdoing from the top of a furry convention.

It’s rare to see consequences when leaders abuse power. Here’s a result of investigation by Dogpatch Press into networks for animal sex abuse, how zoophiles can use the furry community as a front, and how leaders corruptly hide them. This investigation has expanded across multiple furry conventions, including Mephit Furmeet in Memphis, TN, and overlapping staff at the newly founded Anthroverse in Ohio.

The reporting exposes a decades-long pattern that hasn’t been addressed until recently. The pattern began to emerge in 2025 with community protest about a notorious zoophile spokesperson. (Charles Alexander Berry, AKA “Toggle Rat”). While Mephit Furmeet management looked the other way, Toggle attended for at least 13 years while interacting face-to-face with management, on their stage and in official con promotion.

Further digging led to evidence that zoophiles WERE management, according to staff lists from the convention’s own website.

When the evidence couldn’t be refuted, they tried to smear the reporter to bury it. Mephit Furmeet management spread false rumors to staff in common with other cons. It leaked out when the Vice Chair of Anthroverse openly lied to 120 followers. The attempt to manipulate public trust wasn’t credible, and then Dogpatch Press was vindicated for reporting what they don’t want you to know.

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June 16, 2026

COVER UP: Why is Tanta of Mephit Furmeet and Anthroverse hiding zoophile corruption?

by Patch O'Furr

UPDATE: followup article about Tanta’s resignation.

This is a correction to statements by Tanta, volunteer handler at Mephit Furmeet and Vice Chair of forthcoming convention Anthroverse. This report presents evidence to help the community beware of leaders who abuse their positions to lie for PR.

A source for raising animal charity for PR, while looking the other way for animal abusers. (Image updated due to inaccurate tag in linked photo.)

Background of problems at Mephit Furmeet.

Furries close to Mephit Furmeet, the Tennessee convention founded in 1997, were fed up with animal sex abusers being welcome while management ignored complaints. Requests for help led to Dogpatch Press contacting the con, then reporting in October 2025 on behalf of the community and those who were ignored:

Mephit Furmeet put one of the world’s most infamous zoophiles on stage to represent the fandom.

The 2025 report features evidence of 13 years of attendance at Mephit Furmeet by animal sex abuser Charles Alexander Berry — who goes by Buck, Clunk, or Toggle for hosting a podcast called Zooier Than Thou. Toggle attended the con over 4 years after his real identity was tied to his aliases in 2021, despite an organized effort to remove his influence. Local groups took action, but Mephit Furmeet stonewalled this effort, according to sources close to the con.

Toggle was not just a random attendee. This zoophile spokesperson was a long-featured musician in official Mephit Furmeet promotion with his band Exit Mouse. He interacted face-to-face with management at many panels they ran; panels with as few as 5 attendees. His 13-year attendance was under one director with 25 years of tenure, Tyger Cowboy, who started as con chair in 2001.

Here’s where pulling threads starts to unravel a wider network across the history of the con.

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March 14, 2026

Protest at Golden State Fur Con says Hilton houses ICE, gives you “a room covered in blood”

by Patch O'Furr

Source: breakicela – Protest March 15, 12-6 at LAX Hilton

Hilton collaborates with ICE while states and civil rights groups sue

When you rent a room at Hilton, you’re contributing to one of the most valuable hotel corporations in the world, worth around $70 billion. With that power, the brand has thrown their weight behind ICE operations that violate the US Constitution.

Hilton hotels hosted ICE agents in Minnesota while they murdered people like Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, and illegally kidnapped people off the street. In response to the brutality, Minnesota is suing the Department of Homeland Security for violating the constitution. It joins numerous fellow lawsuits from states, counties, and civil rights advocates like the ACLU.

Hotels that serve ICE have become “part of the front lines of local resistance“, according to an article from The American Prospect: ‘No Sleep for ICE’ Campaigns Expand. Hilton “has found itself in the crosshairs of local residents who are unequivocally fed up with the hotel chain for its role in what they see as enabling state violence against their communities.” Pressure has grown from Minnesota, to solidarity protests from the east coast to the west, New York to California.

What happens when event management comes in conflict with member values, when events are already in motion, with contracts signed, tickets sold and travel plans made? Let’s look at two cases.

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December 6, 2025

Owners of Inkedfur, Exotic Erotics, and Party Animals West finally accountable for abuse, but a deeper problem remains

by Patch O'Furr

Owners of 3 businesses capitalized on fandom despite years of complaints. Now they face consequences for contributing to the abuse of children and animals:

  • (1) Inkedfur owner arrested. Inkedfur is a printing service used by popular furry adult artists since 2014. The owner Sangie had a sex crime conviction in the 2000’s, and kept raising allegations of shady business and pedophilia while dealing at conventions that disregarded his record. He was recently arrested again as part of an FBI operation against child sex abuse. The arrest was in May 2025, but it doesn’t seem to have reached community notice yet.
  • (2) Exotic Erotics rejected. Exotic Erotics sells sex toys, including “life cast” toys made by manipulating real animals’ genitalia. This pushed the adult market deep into murky ethics, but they kept being welcome next to regular dealers at conventions from 2009 to 2025. It’s never too late to stop ignoring things, and their inclusion at Midwest Furfest 2025 raised a storm of protest on social media before the con parted ways with them.
  • (3) Party Animals West owner convicted. Party Animals West (PAW) rented clubs for parties attended by hundreds, with a group of 1000 supporters. The owner Frisky was reported to police for CSAM possession years ago when his parties were based in Las Vegas, with no results. He got away from the allegations by relocating and resuming operation in the San Francisco Bay area, until he was arrested for new child abuse in 2024. Other group runners allowed the child victim inside after being warned of risk and overruling it; and a fellow group runner was arrested for the same crimes. Associates tried to bury it, but Frisky was just convicted in late 2025.

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November 24, 2025

Furrydelphia drops Twitter – can you #QuitYourX?

by Patch O'Furr

Bad habits die hard. Let’s talk about how furries use Twitter (“X”), despite everything.

We all know what’s wrong with its biggest influencers and owner.

The world’s richest man bought the site to control information.

It’s not just to deceive you for politics — His power rises by growing traffic of any kind.

Every active account gives him power; for or against, real or fake, traffic grows his power, not yours.

Meanwhile you’ll be trolled with denials of what you can see with your own eyes.

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November 20, 2025

Shake your tails: the history, excitement and impact of the Furry Dance Scene from 2008-now

by Dogpatch Press Staff

Guest post by Kamen the Lycanroc (Kameno-o)

Furry conventions are known to be a place to showcase the arts, and those include dancing. Alongside fursuit parades, music performances, and raves, dance competitions are a staple of the modern furry convention experience. Let’s look at how they got so loved, with memories from two deeply involved furries: Anthrocon’s long-time competition host Ronnie Noodles, and Tommy Dino, a member of the dance community.

Two ways to please crowds

Fursuit dance performances have gone from a small part of the con experience, to centrally scheduled main event attractions. Main event rooms are filled with people sitting both in chairs and on the floor to see fursuiters show off their dance skills and hype up the audience. Anthrocon, for example, saw over 80 applicants in 2025, with an estimated attendance of around 1500-2000 for the event.

Many people hear about dancing and only think of shows where fursuiters perform on stage, but there’s more to it than that. There are two kinds of dance shows present at furry events: Dance competition and Dance Battles.

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October 23, 2025

Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom

by Patch O'Furr

Sick of bad news? Want some good news? Here’s how to make it. Get armed with knowledge to demand better for your community. When there is injustice, getting justice starts with reporting it. Bad media likes to linger on gross details of crime, but helpful media investigates and criticizes patterns, issues, impact, policy and leadership. This public service is often requested by people who need help — especially when leaders and police don’t help — like when there’s internet activity outside their reach, or news has to reach sources they need to come forward. It’s a job for independent reporting, so it can’t be suppressed when leaders are corrupt or protecting friends. This is news by us, for us, because outsiders and bad people don’t run your community… you do.

Five stories get their own headline posts. Here’s the short versions.

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October 23, 2025

Mare Fair enabled shady crypto nazis and a zoophile organizer who preyed on horse rescues

by Patch O'Furr

SERIES: Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom.

Corruption behind the record-breaking charity 

Florida’s Mare Fair is an adults-only My Little Pony convention. It crosses fandom for a kid’s show with the edgy chanboard culture seen in news reporting about the MLP fandom’s Nazi problem. The con is organized by and for 4chan users, and bounced between 3 venues in 3 years while gaining a reputation for hateful behavior. It keeps raising criticism about swastika displays and racist dogwhistles, while critics face backlash for protesting. One critic tells Dogpatch Press: “Nazis and racists used Mare Fair as a hate safe space, because they couldn’t spread it at reputable cons… it became clear that management did not care.” Defenders have pushed back with denial and apologism about the con raising charity for horses.

Mare Fair is run by Snowpity Inc, headed by Joshua “Corpulent Brony” Hope, who founded it by milking fandom with silver coin sales and his own cryptocurrency. This allegedly ties con finances to shady donors with crypto-wealth, who donate so much that it breaks charity records set by other cons — conveniently buying a PR front. Behind the front of helping horses, Hope and the con management teamed up with Kyle “Lightsolver” Foster to help run Mare Fair. Foster is a zoophile who abuses horses, according to horse rescuers who claim Foster manipulated power over their operations, after keeping a crippled horse alive in pain and using a baby horse for years of sex abuse. On top of that, Hope runs his own website that hosts bestiality videos (evidence below).

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October 23, 2025

UK furry event founder and outed zoosadist ring member is still running events 7 years later.

by Patch O'Furr

SERIES: Who runs your community? Five stories about predators with powerful friends in fandom.

No consequences for participating in the worst crime ring to ever emerge in fandom.

A series of international furry events under the name Club Animalz (and other names) has been held in Manchester and Berlin since 2017. The founder, Foxb/Foxberance, AKA Ben Mills, was exposed as an animal rapist in the 2018 zoosadist leaks. Mills raped animals on video, in a fursuit made for him, that he used for years. In 2025, his events are still popular and partnered with large cons in the mainstream of furry like Confuzzled.

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