On the first Sunday in August, a miniature Highland calf named Vinny stood in the parking lot at Village Mercantile next to a rooster named Limu and a dachshund duo named Jaxson and Addie, all of them there for the same reason: to be seen before the voting really heats up. This was a campaign stop, and every animal in that lot is currently running for Pet Mayor of Corrales.
The race is real, in the sense that it produces a winner, a swearing-in, and a full year of appearances. It is also, unmistakably, an election, run by the Kiwanis Club of Corrales Foundation as the marquee fundraiser inside the annual Corrales Harvest Festival, which lands this year on September 26 and 27. Whoever wins gets a title. Corrales Animal Services, the village's no-kill shelter, gets the money. And this year, for the first time, a centipede is in the running.
The Field Already Beat Last Year's Pace
Fourteen animals had officially filed to run by the first week of August this year. That number matters because of what happened at the same point twelve months ago: the 2025 race launched with 10 declared candidates in early August, a field that grew to 13 by the time of the September meet-and-greet. This year opened with more candidates already on the ballot than last year's race ever reached at its August starting line.
The money is tracking the same way. Kiwanis member Susan Armijo Whalley, who is helping organize this year's contest, told the Rio Rancho Observer she's aiming for $10,000 in 2026, about $3,000 more than the club raised last year. As of that early-August meet-and-greet, the fundraiser had already pulled in just over $3,400, a total that climbed to nearly $4,000 within days as more candidates and their backers joined in.
Here's how the last few winners stack up:
| Year | Winner | Species | Amount Raised |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Wendell | Goat | Not documented |
| 2024 | Chico Suave | Miniature horse (38 inches) | About $3,000 |
| 2025 | Apple | Mini pig | $7,000 |
| 2026 | To be decided | Field of 14 and counting | Goal of $10,000 |
The trajectory is the story. What started as a village fundraiser with a loose dollar figure attached has more than doubled its take in two years, and organizers are asking for more again this fall.
Meet a Few of the Candidates
The 2026 ballot reads like nobody set a species requirement, because nobody did. A few of this year's entrants:
- Vinny, a miniature Highland calf, the rare bovine to enter Corrales politics
- Limu, also filed as "Da Baby," a rooster running as the field's only poultry candidate
- Poptart, described by one outlet as a miniature donkey and by another as a miniature horse. Even the local coverage can't agree, which is its own small joke about how loosely this election is run
- Marshal, a horse whose campaign line, "Finally a politician you can bridle," is doing a lot of work in seven words
- Venom, a centipede, the first invertebrate to ever appear on a Pet Mayor ballot
- Jaxson and Addie, dachshunds running as a joint ticket rather than splitting the vote
Voting works the way you'd expect from an event built to raise money for animals rather than to settle anything politically. Votes cost $1 in person and a $2 minimum online, and there's no limit on how many times one person can vote for one animal. Voting closes at 5 p.m. on September 26, and the newly elected Pet Mayor is announced that evening, ahead of the Pet Parade the following morning.
The Losers Don't Go Home Empty-Handed
What keeps this from being a one-and-done gimmick is what happens to everyone who doesn't win. In 2024, the runner-up dog Ted was named the village's pet judge. Armadilla, known as Dilla, became pet fire chief. Marley was appointed director of barks and recreation, Benson took over as pet director of public works, Mae became pet village clerk, Shelby was named pet police chief, and George the guinea pig was installed as village pet administrator, while Cheddar the goat served as pet mayor pro tem.
The titles aren't just for laughs at the parade. Norbert, a hedgehog who ran in 2025 and would have been the first of his species to win, was named Pet Fire Chief when that race wrapped, a title the village's own newsletter still had him holding alongside actual Fire Chief Anthony Martinez as of last fall. Corrales built a shadow cabinet out of a fundraiser, and the appointments outlast the parade that hands them out.
It's Only One Piece of the Weekend
The Pet Mayor race is the loudest part of Harvest Festival, but it's riding inside something larger. The festival has grown from about 800 visitors when it started in 1985 to more than 10,000 attendees today, and this year's edition pulls together nearly every civic group in the village. The mayor's own newsletter put it plainly: the Tractor Club, CHAMP, 4-H, the Corrales School PTA, the Historical Society, MainStreet, and the Society of Artists all have a hand in it, which is not something that can be said about any other single weekend on the village calendar.
Admission runs $20 for adults and anyone 13 and older, with kids 12 and under free. The village's tractor-drawn hay wagons, known locally as the Not-So-Rapid-Transit, carry visitors along a fixed route from Village Mercantile out to the Old Church and the Casa San Ysidro museum. La Entrada Park hosts an art show that's been running for more than 20 years, and the Corrales Growers' Market sets up that Sunday morning from 9 to 1, timed to catch the same foot traffic headed toward the parade.
None of it is separate from the Pet Mayor race. The animals campaigning right now will be at those same tractor stops in September, their owners working the same crowd that's buying produce at the Growers' Market and browsing two decades of local art. It's one weekend built by the same handful of organizations, and the election with a centipede in it is currently the most visible thread holding it together.
If you're weighing in on Vinny, Marshal, or Venom this fall, you're taking part in something that's raised a documented $10,000-plus for the village's animal shelter over the past two cycles alone, one dollar-a-vote at a time.
We follow this kind of detail at The LUX Real Estate Group because it's the texture that actually makes a place like Corrales what it is, not just the acreage and the ditch banks, but the fact that your neighbor's goat might currently be serving as pet mayor pro tem. If you're ever curious what that kind of village character means for your own property's value, Request Your Free Home Valuation and we'll walk you through it.
