Why you might see purple poppies on Remembrance Day

For the second year in a row, volunteers are gathering at the Veterans Association Food Bank in Calgary to crochet purple Remembrance Day poppies.

The purple poppy campaign is a complimentary or alternative poppy to the red poppy of the Royal Canadian Legion.

The purple poppy is a way for people to recognize the significant loss of life for service animals in wars and conflicts.

Leanne Vanderveer heads social media, marketing and administration with the Veterans Association Food Bank and is the volunteer coordinator for the purple poppy campaign.

She says animals have played a more integral part in global conflicts than a lot of people realize.

"There are a lot of dogs that are used in Afghanistan still today," she said.

"The dogs would sniff out IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and they used rats, I believe, in World War I and World War II as well, they used pigeons and horses. There were many different uses, and they were integral to the success and service of their country."

Vanderveer has a goal of 1,200 purple poppies crocheted for this Remembrance Day that are sold for $10 each.

"All of the sales and the proceeds from those poppies go into our Pet Promise Program," she said.

"Currently, we have about 404 pets in our program that we service to make sure that the veterans and all of their family are taken care of, because those furry animals, you know how important they are."

The association says veterans that come in are in favour of the purple poppies and what they represent.

"A lot of them have their own service or companion animals now that they're back home," said Vanderveer.

"They want to honor them, they know how important they are, so they're completely on board with supporting this program and anything that they can do to help out."

Alison Mercer is the curator at the Air Force Museum of Alberta and says it's nice that military service animals are being recognized.

"The service and, I guess you could say, the sacrifice of what all these different types of animals made throughout the years in terms of human involvement of war and the Canadian involvement of war has been huge and very notable – and something that really is not talked about that much."

Mercer points out that in 1943, the Dickin medal was awarded to service animals in recognition of their achievements and sacrifices.

"This, essentially, is the Victoria Cross equivalent that could be awarded to animals for exemplary service, and it was posthumously awarded to a few of the animals from the First World War," she said

"Warrior, who was General Jack Seely's horse –  he was the general of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade – and Warrior had been through a ton of different stuff, should have been killed a whole bunch of times, but kept going so he got the Dickin medal."

She adds that a pigeon in the Second World War received the Dickin medal for relaying news of the Deippe landing back to England.

Vanderveer says purple poppies will be sold at kiosks in the Sunridge Mall and Marlborough Mall from Nov. 1 to 10.

To learn more about the Veterans Association Food Bank you can visit the organization's website.