Ark-Valley Humane Society Feline & Fido Calendar Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Feline & Fido Calendar Contest is and who runs it

The Feline & Fido Calendar Contest is an annual pet photo fundraiser run by the Ark-Valley Humane Society, an animal shelter headquartered at 701 Gregg Drive, PO Box 1335, Buena Vista, CO 81211. The shelter serves its home region of central Colorado around Buena Vista and Salida, and local coverage has come from The Mountain Mail and the Chaffee County Times, both of which have carried the contest in past cycles. The ballot lives on GoGo Photo Contest, hosted at gogophotocontest.com/avhs, and the page titles itself "Ark-Valley Humane Society | Feline & Fido Photo Contest."

The format is simple and unusually direct for a fundraiser ballot: supporters upload photographs of their own pets, the public votes for the photos it likes best, and the top vote-getters are featured in the shelter's annual Feline & Fido calendar. Every vote is a paid vote at $1, which makes the contest a fundraising engine as much as a popularity poll. The shelter presents entering as a way to celebrate your own pet while caring for the animals in its charge, which is about as honest a pitch as a fundraiser makes.

In the wider Colorado contest field this program sits apart from the readers' choice polls. It is a single-organizer charity ballot rather than a media ranking, which changes both the stakes and the tone: nobody's business listing is at risk, and the money goes to shelter animals.

The 2026 window and the contest's edition history

The 2026 edition is the 11th annual Ark-Valley Humane Society Feline & Fido Calendar Contest. The contest starts on September 27, 2026 at 8:00 AM Mountain Time, and the online voting period ends at 9:00 PM Mountain Time on Sunday, October 11, 2026. Photos can be voted on by the public throughout the submission period and up to that closing moment, so entry and voting overlap rather than running as separate phases.

The edition list is long and mostly continuous. Confirmed years run 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2026, and the 2024 cycle was reported locally as the 9th annual, which lines up with the 11th annual billing two years later. Every recent cycle has occupied the same late September to mid October slot, a rhythm the 2026 dates follow exactly: open in the final days of September, close mid month.

What the ballot page leaves off is the category roster and any per-supporter voting rule; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. A rules link exists in the page navigation, so the detail may live one click away, but nothing on the main ballot states how many categories run or how often one person may vote.

For planning purposes, the practical takeaway is the closing time. A photo that needs ground to make up has to do it before 9:00 PM Mountain Time on October 11, 2026, and no extension is advertised anywhere on the ballot.

How a supporter votes in the Feline & Fido contest today

The mechanic is a paid vote, and it is the same for everyone. A supporter opens gogophotocontest.com/avhs, finds a pet photo in the gallery, and buys votes at $1 each. Every transaction carries a $5 minimum, so the smallest possible action on this ballot is a five-dollar contribution. There is no free daily click and no share-to-vote ladder; the currency is dollars, which is why the shelter describes the contest as a fundraiser first.

Entering works through the Participate tab. The instructions say to click that tab, follow the directions, and upload a photograph of your pet, and the shelter notes that it is only accepting online entries. You may submit as many photos as you like, so a household with several animals can run multiple entries in the same cycle. Each entry then competes on the same terms: total paid votes by the close of the window.

Because votes cost money, campaigns here look different from free polls. A supporter backing a pet typically makes one larger purchase rather than returning daily, and spreads the word to friends who may add their own dollars. If you are weighing how far outside help should go, our award votes page explains the general mechanics of paid vote support for contests like this one.

One caution belongs here: the ballot page sells votes itself, so the organizer's own paid channel is always the most direct route. Anything beyond it should be checked against the shelter's rules before money changes hands, since those rules are not summarized on the ballot itself.

How this ballot sits beside its Colorado neighbours

Colorado's public-vote field is dominated by readers' choice polls from media publishers, and the Feline & Fido Calendar Contest shares the state with six of them on this site. Top of the Town from 5280, Best of Denver from Westword, the Gazette's Best of the Springs poll, Best of NOCO, Best of Summit County and Best of the Boat from Steamboat all rank businesses and services across their markets.

This contest is the odd one out in three ways. First, it belongs to a charity, not a publisher, so its market is the shelter's Chaffee County service area rather than a metro region. Second, its ballot entries are pets, not businesses, which means the emotional register is celebration rather than commerce. Third, its votes are paid by design at $1 each with a $5 minimum, while most readers' polls mix free daily voting with paid boosts.

Those differences matter for anyone comparing vote strategies across programs. A tactic tuned to a free daily-click poll does not transfer cleanly to a ballot where every vote is a donation, and the calendar prize structure means the reward is a photo spread rather than a business title. Treat this program on its own terms: a two-week October window, a Buena Vista organizer, and a gallery of pets competing for the 2027 AVHS calendar.