Waikiki’s premier ocean sports festival celebrates legendary waterman Duke Kahanamoku with 27 surfing, swimming and volleyball events but for the first time ever has opened the festival to four-legged friends.

This year’s Duke’s OceanFest will include the "Going to the Dogs SurFur Competition" at Queen’s Surf at Kuhio Beach in Waikiki. It’s scheduled for Wednesday, water conditions permitting. More than a dozen dogs and a pig are expected to compete for the best ride, the best tandem wave and the best-dressed surfing pet, according to OceanFest co-chairman Jim Fulton.

"We had known there was a historical context of dog surfing over the years, and we always try to keep things historically correct," said Fulton. "People have asked about the dog surfing and if we were going to do it. We thought this was the year to do it."

Sponsors for the event include the Hawaiian Humane Society, Duke’s Waikiki and Outrigger Resorts, among others. The event is all in good fun, according to Fulton, and might become a regular part of Duke’s OceanFest.

"It is part of our surfing history here in Hawaii," he said.

The competition will feature celebrity surfing dog Abbie and her owner, Michael Uy, of San Diego.

"We’re really stoked," said Uy, a 45-year-old startup tech entrepreneur. "It’s so cool that they’re doing it at OceanFest. I always wanted to go, with or without the dog surfing."

Abbie, an 8-year-old Australian kelpie, not only has sponsors — GoPro and Dogswell — but she was inducted into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame. She rides a 5-foot-10, custom-designed surfboard and wears a special wet suit.

Uy adopted Abbie from the Humane Society Silicon Valley seven years ago. She had been picked up as a stray and was fearful of people and other dogs, so he would take her to the beach to socialize her. An avid open ocean swimmer, Uy took Abbie out in the water with him and would borrow surfboards for the 35-pound dog to rest on.

Before he knew it, she was standing on the board and riding the waves. Uy usually swims out with Abbie and her board, then she climbs on it by herself and surfs solo.

"She knows how to drop in, get down and push the board with her paws," Uy said. "She actually walks the board and lifts a paw to balance. She knows how to trim it out."

Del Mar in San Diego is Abbie’s home break, which she surfs a few times a week.

Uy and Abbie have already met Hawaii’s best-known surfing pet, Kama the pig, and his owner, Kai Holt. Both Abbie and Kama surfed at Queen’s in Waikiki, and there were no reports of either pet being a wave hog.

Surfing dogs are not a new trend in Hawaii, according to Sandy Hall, Kahanamoku’s biographer. They were a tourist attraction in the 1940s in Waikiki, particularly at the breaks in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and Moana Surfrider. The most famous surfing dog was named Sandy.

Kahanamoku’s brother, David, had a surfing dog, too, Hall said.

Southern California is actually home to a few regular dog surfing events that raise money for animal-related charities, which include the Unleashed by Petco Surf Dog Competition in Imperial Beach, Calif., earlier this month and the Surf City Surf Dog competition at Huntington Beach, Calif., in September.

Rocky Canon of the North Shore is excited to be competing at Duke’s OceanFest with his 2-year-old dog, Hina, a pit bull, Labrador retriever and Rhodesian Ridgeback mix. They’re entered in the tandem surf category.

"It will be her first surf contest," he said.

Canon, 35, teaches guests how to surf with dogs at Turtle Bay Resort as the experience center manager. He’s a lifelong surfer who always had pet dogs growing up.

Since it’s difficult for animals to fly to and from the mainland, Canon welcomes a surf dog competition in Hawaii, the birthplace of surfing.

Hina has been surfing with him since she was a puppy and goes out three to four times a week, he said. She learned from his previous dog, Pulu, who surfed up to his last days at the ripe age of 13. Pulu died in July 2013. Hina would copy what Pulu did on the surfboard.

"She’s as ready as she can be," Canon said. "She had a good teacher with my previous dog, so she’s second generation. She’s a really good swimmer and confident on the board. She’s not afraid to fall off."