With a leap, a bound, and here and there an oink-oink, Petpalooza, Auburn’s free celebration of those fabulous beasts in our lives, returns May 18 to Game Farm Park for another day of fun.

The festival starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m.

Leashed to this mid-spring festival is that annual opening act, the popular Dog Trot 3K/5K Fun Run at 9:30 a.m.

Look also for the live entertainment, Skyhoundz Disc Dog Championships, Seattle Flydogs demos, pony rides agility areas, the noon pet parade, more than 150 vendor booths, giveaways and lots of activities to keep humans and pets entertained.

Back also is the popular 40-by-20-foot petting zoo, rife with wallabies, miniature horses, llamas, pot-bellied piggies, Sicilian donkeys, sheep and other animals not necessarily found in other petting zoos.

There’s Ag-ventureland, offering 10 different hands-on interactive activities for kids to try out, like milking a life-size, Fiberglass cow, pony saddling and riding pedal tractors.

Enjoy top-flight entertainment on the main entertainment stage, from Auburn’s Parrot Lady and Reptile Isle to the Fabulous Murf Tones.

“GASCAR inter-species animal racing is back, and it is lots of fun,” said Kristy Pachciarz, coordinator of Petpalooza. “These races bring together a variety of animals for a race. You get to see a duck racing a goat, and there’s no telling who will win.”

Try a great food court with nine food vendors.

In addition to its usual menagerie of howling and growling, barking and baying, neighing and braying beasts, Petpalooza will roll out some new and exceedingly cool stuff this year.

Take Issaquah-based Animal Encounters’ live, hands-on, interactive bug zoo. That’s right, here it is, the real McCoy, the thing you always dreamed of but feared might pass you by — a chance to touch real, multi-legged, antenna-waggling creepy crawlies and learn stuff you pined to know about them but perhaps were too horrified to ask.

New this year will be the Artrageous Zone, offering four, hands-on art opportunities, from paw-print activities that allow owners to use Fluffy or Fido’s paws to make a picture to experimenting with metal art to make a pet tag for your critter.

Auburn-based Budu Racing takes over the timing of dog race events, employing chips in the dog’s bib that record the precise time they cross the start line and cross back over the finish line.

And there’ll be an artist to make a portrait of your animal.

The City expects a crowd of about 15,000.

“So far we’ve already got 360 registered for the dog trot, and last year we had 354 total,” Pachciarz said.