PNW Dog of the Year 2023

Congratulations to Ember, who won this year's PNW Dog of the Year Contest with nearly 1,000 votes!

Ember is a 5-year-old Golden Retriever who serves her community in Oregon as a Therapy Dog. She and her human partner work at a local hospital. She is a third generation Project Canine Therapy Dog and also serves as a Hope Animal Assisted Crisis Response Dog.

Ember is also an amazing nanny to puppies and helps them learn to socialize with other dogs. This is vitally important if the puppies are to grow up to be therapy dogs.

When Ember is not working or supervising puppies, she loves to go to the beach.

You can follow Ember's adventures on Instagram or Facebook.

Ember is the embodiment of a gracious Golden Retriever. Her and her human partner work tirelessly to help and support people when they need a paw to hold or a shoulder to cry on. They are a wonderful team.

$500 was donated to their dog charity of choice, Pile of Puppies, in Ember's name.
She will receive a custom made crown, a certificate, a complimentary photo session, a 5x7 acrylic block, and 2 t-shirts for her humans.

She also is on the cover of the 2024 Tails of the Pacific Northwest Calendar, which is available to order until Sept. 40.

You can see that the voting was intense, but Ember took the lead early and maintained it for the entirety of the contest. She had a lot of competition too! Sterling and Tugboat ran successful campaigns!

Tugboat took his campaign to work, where he encouraged boaters to vote. He is a mussel detection dog who works at a very busy lake in Northern California, so he interacted with humans a lot.

You can imagine how amused I was when I got this photo.

While Tugboat didn't win PNW Dog of the Year, he ran an amazing campaign and many people learned about what Mussel Dogs do and why they are important. I think I'd count that as a win!

Great job Tugboat! <3

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Some folks got really creative with their campaigns!

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PNW Snow Dog of the Year

Congratulations to Sterling, who has been named PNW Snow Dog of the Year! Why? Well.... As I explained to my Patreon Community:

"Sterling and Walker are brothers-in-dog who were on my "Dogs I Want To Meet" Instagram Wishlist. I had been in contact with Lillian, their human, for a few months, but things never worked out for me to actually meet her and the dogs. 
When it was announced that I was creating "Tails of the Pacific Northwest", Lillian was interested, but Sterling required a lot of care, which, of course, costs money. She even created a GoFundMe campaign to help with the cost. Anyway, long story short, she couldn't participate because of a lack of funds. 
This is where YOU came in! I had just enough in the Working Dog Photographer's Fund for Lillian to register both boys to be in the book. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT!
Once I told Lillian that we wanted to feature the boys and that the cost had been taken care of, she was thrilled. We set up the session to take place in Anacortes, one of my favorite places to shoot. I was *hoping* for a cloudy day, but it is Bluebird season and the skies were cloudless and blue. We made it work.
Since Sterling has a tough time getting around, we didn't get to the beach and that was totally ok. We found many places where he could explore, safely. 
Now, let me take a minute here and explain why I love these dogs so much.
First of all, they are both rescues. Sterling was rescued in Texas and Walker was found while Lillian and her husband were hiking in the woods. Sterling had glaucoma and, at the age of 8, he went blind. He requires eye protection when he's outside, so he rocks his RexSpecs. Walker has become his emotional support dog and, as long as Walker is around, Sterling feels safe. It's an amazing relationship. When experienced in person, it's just magic. (I know I use that word a lot when it comes to dogs, but it's always true!) Also, both of the dogs are Amabassadogs for a local Malamute Rescue.
You can understand my excitement when I realized that your support could actually get these boys in the book! And then, it got even better!
As I do when I create any book, I started a Dog of the Year Campaign. Since I had working dogs and non working dogs in the book, I could not run a "Working Dog of the Year" campaign, so it became PNW Dog of the Year. Sterling's mom took it and ran with it. She put it on social media, talked to her friends and neighbors, and told her vet about it. While she was excited, she was worried about over doing it. She shares everything on social media about Sterling and Walker and did not want her followers to feel overwhelmed between the GoFundMe Campaign and the PNW Dog of the Year Campaign. 
That being said, Sterling is currently in second place; behind by 147 votes. With 2 weeks left in the contest, he has a fair chance of winning. If he does, $500 will be donated to Washington Alaskan Malamute Adoption League (Wamal). He will become the cover dog for the 2024 Tails of the PNW Calendar. He will receive a crown and a certificate and so much more. Even if he doesn't win, his second place standing will assure his appearance in the calendar. 
All of this because YOU supported me doing something that I love to do. Lillian doesn't know that I am doing all of this. She just thinks I was being nice and allowing the dogs in the book. But, it is important to tell their story. Lillian feels alone in her journey with Sterling's newly diagnosed cancer and I check in with her often. I wish I could just give her the money for Sterling's treatments so she could focus completely on caring for her dogs. Since I am not a gazillionaire, I'm doing what I can to help. 
When her dogs have finished their journey's, she will always have the book, the photos and the calendar to remember them. It's not much, but it's what I can do with YOUR support."

Secondly, the voting concluded when I was in Michigan. That's a different time zone by 3 hours. I *thought* I was smart enough to have set the voting to end at midnight PST, but I did not remember the time zone difference. My laptop, thinking it was smarter than me, ended the voting at midnight EST, meaning anyone on the West Coast lost their chance to vote between 9 pm - midnight.

It was brought to my attention the next morning with some... let's say unsatisfied voters. I spoke with Lillian to apologize and then had a smack upside the head of inspiration.

I had to talk to Ember's human first, before I could say anything to Lillian. So, that's exactly what I did!

Ember's human has gone through a cancer journey with a dog. She also knows how much my mistake bothered me. (I have nothing if I don't have my integrity.)

So, with Ember's human's blessing, I created 2 PNW Dog(s) of the Year awards! Because Sterling is a Wooley Husky and loves the snow, it just made sense to name him Snow Dog of the Year.

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The Calendars

Sterling's Dog Charity of choice, in the event he won, was Washington Alaskan Malamute Rescue League. In order for things to feel fair, I decided that a portion of the proceeds of the sale of the calendar featuring Sterling on the cover will be donated to Wamal. I don't know if we will raise $500, but we will do the best we can.

The Calendars are on sale now until September 30th, with your choice of covers; Sterling or Ember. Or, order both!

To order, simply scan the QR code or click the button, below.

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Order 2024 Calendar

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Thank you!

A big thank you to everyone who participated in this year's PNW Dog of the Year contest. My little ol' dog lovin' heart is just so happy!
We helped Pile of Puppies and Wamal.
Our little community grew and it was amazing watching everyone support each other.
I met new dogs and made new friends.
Isn't that what community is all about?

Hugs to your dogs!
Holly