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WHO HAS THE CUTEST PET?
Especially for Pets recently partnered with local businesses Circle Furniture, Sudbury Rug, Sunny Day Photography and Nature’s Variety Pet Food, to hold the Cutest Pet Contest in all seven store locations. Sunny Day owner and photographer, Jennifer Tonelli, created the idea to encourage pet adoption awareness in each town and for pet owners to have fun with their pets! For a $25 sitting fee, customers brought their pets into their local Especially for Pets for a photo shoot with Sunny Day Photography; they were automatically entered into our contest. In addition, folks were encouraged to bring in a donation for a local shelter and they were entered to win a raffle prize. The Medway store collected the most donations which were given to Amazing Greyz, Inc. Greyhound Adoption. Voting took place online at www.sunnydayphotography.net and 7,796 votes were cast during the contest period. Each First Place winner received a $250 Prize Pack which included three bags of cat or dog food from Nature’s Variety, $50 Gift Card to Especially for Pets, $50 Gift Card to Circle Furniture, $50 Gift Card to Sudbury Rug, and an 11x17 portrait of their pet from Sunny Day Photography. The Grand Prize winner received a $650 Prize Pack! One Hundred and twenty-three pets entered the first ever Cutest Pet Contest and made it a huge success! Thank you to all the pets and owners who entered our contest. We are really glad it was online voting because there was no way we could have chosen the cutest pet….there were ALL very cute! Here are the winning photos and a little bit about the winning pets.  Lyn
Chaves of Marlborough is the proud owner of Grand Prize Winner Ozzy the
Bulldog! Ozzy won with 19% of votes. (The second place spot was a pet
with 14% of the votes.) Lyn said “Ozzy is trying hard not to let
the big win go to his head but he is a proud boy.” Ozzy is a regular
customer in our Sudbury store and is well-loved by all! Lyn and her husband adopted Ozzy from a Middleboro breeder two years
ago and feel that they “lucked out with Ozzy.” They had talked about
getting a bulldog for years, but needed to wait until they had a house
and yard. A friend suggested that they try the AKC website to see
if there were any litters registered. There was one litter in
Middleboro who they immediately called to set up a visit; and headed
out to meet mom and the puppies (they were four-days old). They
were well prepared and were up to the task of raising a new bulldog
puppy. Lyn said “With the help of Especially for Pets training
classes, Ozzy is now a well mannered, (well mostly) well socialized two
year old love. We purchased him a run so he can be outside with us
as we do all our new yard work. We are getting his winning portrait
framed to hang in the living room. Ozzy loves coming to Especially for
Pets either to get his nails clipped or just to shop and visit, once
inside he hates to leave!” The
Canton store winner was an “approximately” five-year old Basset Hound
named Radar from Milton. Maribeth Johnson-Flakes explained that she and
husband John adopted Radar from the San Diego County Shelter in Bonita,
CA. “I knew I wanted to adopt a shelter dog so I spent days perusing
Petfinder.com until I saw Radar’s picture. The next morning we drove to
the shelter to be there when they opened and I asked if they still had
the basset hound. Once we saw that hound waddle towards us it was love
at first sight. As we spent time with Radar getting to know him, the
volunteer gave us a handful of ear plugs and told us ‘you’ll need
them!’ Radar had been returned to the shelter by two different families
for ‘excessive barking.’ I am not sure what they expected from a HOUND
dog but… their loss was our gain.  Radar made his East Coast debut when
we moved back home from California to Massachusetts in 2008. Radar was
“approximately two- years old” when we adopted him in August 2007 so
nowadays we think he is “approximately five-years old” and we celebrate
his birthday on his adoption day each year. My husband and I are
newlyweds and very recent homeowners so we’re using Radar’s winning to
spoil him rotten (as usual) and decorate our new home! “ Lily
the Pug was the proud winner of the Newton store contest. She is a
seven-month old pure-bred pug, from a breeder in Rome, NY. Her mom,
Suzanne Spinelli of West Newton said: “Lily is a lovable puppy with a
great sense of humor! She enjoys the company of others, especially if
she is sitting on someone’s lap! During nice days, she loves to be
outside either rolling in the grass, or going for long walks meeting
other friendly dogs along the way. When Lily was told she won the
contest, she lifted her head up from a deep sleep and then rolled over
and continued snoring – 9:00pm was way past her usual bedtime!”  The
Wayland store winner was a one-year old Sheltie/Japanese Chin Mix named
Kiani, also a resident of Wayland. Victoria Vandeloop, Kiani’s mom
explains where she got Kiani….”She was brought to my workplace in
a cardboard box with her three siblings by a nurse at the Nursing
Home whose two dogs got together just days before the spay
appointment was due to arrive. The Sheltie dad and Japanese Chin
mom birthed four pups.  I fell in love at first sight,
and Kiani, the last pup to be picked, came home with
me! It is so exciting to win your contest, since I (and Kiani)
have never won anything before. We have never gone anywhere but
Especially for Pets for everything she needs. The Wayland
store folks are like family to us there. Kiani always shops for
her own chew bone and greets all the staff with
great enthusiasm! Your beautiful portrait of
Kiani is going on my office wall at the nursing home...it is so
precious! Lots of disabled elders, who can no longer have a
dog, will enjoy my sweet Kiani's lovely enlarged portrait that we
won in your photo contest!”  Westborough’s winners were Aristocles, Orion and Artemis, the three famous cats who have their own blog, www.meezerhouse.com.
They are owned by Robin Macklin of Northborough. Robin said: “It is
such a pleasure to share our home with these three exceptional six-year
old kitten siblings. All three of our babies are sweet and well behaved. They each have a unique and e  ntertaining personality. Orion is
stately, quiet and very diplomatic. We call him a "diplocat." Artemis
is a super smart, shy girl. She stares at herself in the mirror when
she thinks no one is observing her. Aristocles is snuggly, playful and
chatty. Aristocles loves to go out and meet new people. Many people
they meet fall in love with them and enjoy their stories so we started
a blog for them! We got them as companions to a
15-yearold seal point Siamese, Archimedes, who had recently
lost his life long best friend, Dite, and was severely depressed.
Ever since, family and friends have referred to them as ‘the
kittens.’ Though we never imagined having more than two kitties at a
time, we've never looked back and continue to enjoy ‘the kittens.’In the same spirit of our partners who donated prizes for our contest winners, three of our contest winners donated some of all their prize packs right back to local shelters!  The
Acton store winner was a nine month old guinea pig named Mohawk, ‘Mo’
for short. When Mo’s owner, nine year old Dylan Kerr of Acton, learned
of the contest she decided that if she won, she would donate her prize
to local shelters in need. Dylan asked friends and sports buddies to
vote for Mo during the online contest. Dylan said: ‘I did it
because I wanted to help the animals; I wanted to make their days a
little brighter. I couldn’t adopt all of them so I wanted to do the
next best thing.’ Dylan is splitting her prize pack between Amazing
Greyz, Inc. Greyhound Adoption in Franklin and MSPCA, Nevins Farm in
Methuen.  Nancy Barbour, President of Amazing Greyz said: ‘Dylan is such a
thoughtful and generous little girl! We are so very grateful that
her heart belongs to animals...and that she and Mo worked so diligently
to win on behalf of our sweet greyhounds at Amazing Greyz.’ Michael
Keiley, Director of Noble Family Animal Care and Adoption Center, MSPCA
at Nevins Farm said: ‘Dylan exemplifies for us the true spirit of
compassion and thoughtfulness for the needy homeless animals in our
community. It is inspirational to hear of such a selfless act
done by such a young person and I hope Dylan’s story inspires both the
children and adults in our community to act on the behalf of the
animals that rely on all of us for a second chance at life and love.’
After viewing the MSPCA at Nevins Farm website, Dylan has decided to
adopt another homeless guinea pig, Mr. Bigglesworth! When Dylan
and her mom went to the MSPCA to donate their prize pack, they got the
grand tour of the facility including meeting many of the animals
available for adoption. Dylan’s goal was to hold as many animals as
possible during her visit. Dylan thanked Heather Robertson,
Community Outreach Coordinator, and told her ‘this was the best day of
my life!’  Greta
the cat was the Medway store winner and her owners adopted her from The
Purr-fect Cat Shelter six years ago. Before entering the contest,
Greta’s owner decided that if she won, she would donate her prize to
The Purr-fect Cat Shelter. Greta’s owner, Miriam Steel of Medway, said: "We are so grateful for the wonderful loving care Greta received from the Purr-fect Cat Shelter and are delighted to be in the position to reciprocate in this small way. The prize package from the contest will feed another deserving kitty for up to three months.  We can only
hope that some other family is as lucky as ours and
will adopt their own Greta from PCS." Donna Elbery of
The Purr-fect Cat Shelter added: “We are so thrilled that Greta won
“The Cutest Pet” in Medway. She chose an awesome family to adopt in
2004 and we greatly appreciate that her family so generously
wants to give back to other homeless cats and kittens cared for by the
volunteers of PCS.” Inspired by the generosity of Greta’s owner,
Wellness Pet Foods and World’s Best Cat Litter (Especially for Pets
partners) decided to donate food and litter to the Purr-fect Cat
Shelter to help even more homeless cats.  The
winner in Sudbury was Dolce, an eleven month, old three pound, short
hair, blue and tan Chihuahua from Waltham. Ali Minkoff, Dolce’s mom said: “She is the cutest, smartest and certainly the smallest dog that I have ever had. She was house trained from the moment I brought her home; she goes either outside or on pee pads. She also has been extremely easy to train and she knows how to come, sit, give kisses, high five, paw, bow, wave, speak, spin, stay, crate up, and she even knows "lie down" in German. Her favorite tricks by far are speak and high five.  She also fetches better
than a Golden Retriever. She is super friendly and is not possessive
over one person, however, because of her small size it takes her a
little while to warm up to someone new. She loves other dogs,
especially the big ones, but again, due to her size she can get
overwhelmed with high energy dogs that think she is a toy. Dolce brings
a lot of happiness to a lot of people. This year, I will be
training her to be a therapy dog and I hope to be able to bring her to
hospitals, assisted living facilities and other places where she might
be able to help others. Because Dolce is so tiny and can only eat
a particular brand of food, we plan to donate the food coupons we
received from our winnings to a local shelter. I am
certainly the doting dog mom, and feel truly blessed to have such a
wonderful and cute dog. People have not seen the end of Dolce!
This was the first contest she was in but it may not be the last.”Watch for our next Cutest Pet Contest, coming early next spring! More about Sunny Day Photography Sunny Day Photography LLC is a portrait and event photography business serving Central and Eastern MA. They specialize in location photography such as family, pet, high school seniors, sports, and school portraits. Their desire to give back to the communities they serve inspired the Cutest Pet Contest and the donations it raised. For more information, visit www.sunnydayphotography.net. |
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