Shelter to Soldier Dog Calendar Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Shelter to Soldier Dog Calendar Contest, and who runs it?

Shelter to Soldier is a California 501c3 nonprofit organization headquartered at 2336 Front St. in San Diego. Its stated purpose is to adopt dogs from local shelters and train them to become psychiatric service dogs for post-9/11 veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) and/or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The Shelter to Soldier Dog Calendar Contest is the organization's photo ballot: supporters back pictures of dogs, and the exercise doubles as outreach for the nonprofit's mission.

The ballot runs on GoGo Photo Contest, a balloting platform whose footer credits GGPC, LLC with a 2026 copyright notice. Its address is www.gogophotocontest.com/sheltertosoldier, and each dog carries a page beneath that path. Vertically the programme belongs to the pet calendar family, and geographically it belongs to California, with San Diego as the nonprofit's home city.

The organization behind the calendar

Because the organizer is a working service-dog provider, the calendar functions as a mission vehicle above all. Veterans and their families in the San Diego area form a natural base of support, and every entrant page points back to that cause.

Which editions are confirmed, and when did the 2024 window run?

The ballot's confirmed years at GoGo Photo Contest are 2024 and 2025. The 2024 window is printed on the ballot in full: the entry period started at 7:00 AM Pacific Time on Monday, April 22, 2024 and ended at 9:00 PM Pacific Time on Sunday, May 26, 2024. That stretch covers the entry and nomination stage of the contest, ahead of the tallying that decides the cover.

The stakes are stated plainly: the dog that collects the most votes will win the coveted cover photo spot for the organization's printed calendar, and the ballot specifies that contest winners are determined through electronic vote tabulation supervised by GoGo Photo Contest, whose decisions are final.

For cycles beyond the printed 2024 window, Shelter to Soldier has posted no opening day, no closing hour and no category roster; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Further blanks sit alongside that one. No per-supporter vote allowance is printed with the entries. No eligibility text says who may enter a dog or who may vote. And no round-by-round schedule for the 2025 edition was ever attached to the ballot.

How does a supporter cast a vote for a dog?

Voting follows a short path. During an open window, a supporter loads gogophotocontest.com/sheltertosoldier, opens the View Entries area, and browses the dogs in the running. Each animal holds a page of its own beneath the ballot path; a past entrant, for instance, sat at gogophotocontest.com/sheltertosoldier/entries/504675. From that page the supporter casts a vote for the chosen dog.

Outside the window the ballot switches to a closed state that reads "Contest has ended.", so a visitor arriving between seasons sees the outcome rather than a live list.

Accounts, phones and repeat visits

The ballot header carries a Sign In option, yet the public pages stop short of saying whether a vote demands credentials. Nothing on the entry list sets out a per-person allowance or a daily cadence either, so the practical check is the vote control itself during a live round. The page behaves like any other website in a phone browser, which means a supporter can take part from the couch, the office or the dog park without installing anything.

A caution belongs here: arriving after the printed 9:00 PM Pacific close on the final day leaves no room to act, since that deadline is the moment the entry period ends.

How does this dog calendar sit beside other California pet ballots?

California's pet-photo ballot scene holds several neighbours, and the list below names them all. The 2026 Calendar of Superstar Pets Photo Contest and the Pet Photo Calendar Contest are broad pet calendars. The 5th Annual FRTD Dog Calendar Contest is another dog-centred fundraiser. Bark for a Cure! Pet Costume Photo Contest shifts the format toward costumes. Community Concern for Cats appears in the list under separate cat calendar routes.

Set beside those, the Shelter to Soldier ballot differs along clear lines. Its organizer is a service-dog provider with a psychiatric mission for post-9/11 veterans, not a shelter, club or media brand. Its prize is a calendar cover rather than a titled honour. And its home city, San Diego, ties it to that city's veteran community.

How can a supporter lift a favorite dog toward the cover?

Support for a particular dog starts with the entry address. Sharing the dog's own page, in the form past entrants use, lands a friend directly on that animal instead of the ballot root. Timing matters as well: a push organised for the final evening has to beat the printed 9:00 PM Pacific close.

The mission itself is the strongest message. Psychiatric service dogs for post-9/11 veterans give San Diego's veteran networks, dog clubs and pet businesses a concrete reason to pass an entry along, and the calendar cover gives the winning dog's humans a visible goal. Shelter to Soldier publishes no statement on outside assistance, so the Rules tab remains the authority for whichever methods are allowed. For broader technique, see the outreach handbook, and for the award-style version of the same problem see the award-ballot primer.