Mugs, Mutts & Meows Calendar Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Mugs, Mutts & Meows Calendar Contest and who runs it?

North Country Pet Adoption Services, usually shortened to NCPAS, presents the Mugs, Mutts & Meows Calendar Contest, and the ballot masthead labels it outright as a Fundraiser for North Country Pet Adoption Services. The organization ties the event to the Watertown, New York area, and describes the project in its own words as a mature effort: "Our annual rescue calendar has evolved into one of our top annual fundraisers." That framing matters, because it marks the contest as a revenue engine the rescue relies on rather than a publicity poll bolted onto a shelter's website.

The format is a pet photo calendar. Owners upload pictures of their animals during a submission window, and the public then backs a favorite by purchasing votes on the ballot at gogophotocontest.com/ncpas. Twelve winning entrants see their pets photographed professionally by Three Dog's Photography for the 2027 calendar, and the participant whose animal draws the most votes claims the coveted cover spot.

Quick facts

When did the 2026 contest run, and what did it raise?

Two editions of the fundraiser have run so far, in 2025 and in 2026. The 2026 round accepted photo submissions from 8:00 AM Eastern Time on Monday, August 17, 2026 until midnight, 11:59:59 PM Eastern, on Saturday, August 29, 2026. Public voting overlapped that entry period and continued through 9:00 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, September 2, 2026.

When the ballot shut down, the fundraiser stood at $7,191 raised, and the top of the leaderboard read Benny with 436 votes, Daisy June with 418, and Taily (TailyDoga) with 280.

Two things remain unsettled. Dates for the next edition had not been posted when the 2026 round ended. Nor does the ballot publish a category breakdown for its entries; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The 2026 window at a glance

How does a supporter actually vote on the NCPAS ballot?

Voting here is a purchase from the first tap. A supporter opens gogophotocontest.com/ncpas, picks View Entries to scroll the submitted pets, chooses one, and completes payment at $2 per vote. That price is the point of the exercise: unlike free fan polls, every click channels money to the rescue, which is why the masthead itself carries the fundraiser label.

The menu doubles as a map of the whole operation. Participate takes an owner into entry, Rules and About Us carry the organizer's own terms and background, and Sign In sits in the navigation, though the page text does not explain what signing in changes for a voter.

Because the 2026 edition closed on September 2, that sequence waits for the next launch. One boundary the printed rules leave open: nothing in them caps how many separate purchases one supporter can make during a single window.

Anyone weighing outside help for a ranked ballot can read the award-vote overview before committing to anything.

Where does this contest sit among New York's rescue ballots?

New York shelters and rescues run a whole family of calendar and photo ballots, and the Mugs, Mutts & Meows contest shares that company. Closest by shape is the Buffalo CARES Animal Rescue Calendar Contest, another rescue calendar built around public voting. Chautauqua County Humane Society fields two near-twin pages, the Hot Dogs Cool Cats Photo Contest and the Hot Dogs, Cool Cats Photo Contest, while Pet Pride's runs a Cool Cats Calendar Contest beside its SuperCats Photo & Calendar Contest. Rounding out the set, the Now For Who Should Win Buffalos Cutest Couples Contest moves the same voting idea onto baby photos.

Geography binds the group as tightly as format does: every one of these programs sits on a New York route, and several serve markets far removed from the Watertown area, so anyone following Empire State rescue fundraisers meets the same photo-calendar skeleton again and again under different shelter banners. Reading two or three neighbours side by side makes NCPAS's own choices easier to recognize, because the shared frame throws whatever an individual organizer adds or leaves out into sharper relief.

What separates the NCPAS ballot within this crowd is the paid vote. The $2 charge turns the standings into a running fundraising meter, the total is reported openly, and the reward is a tangible printed product, the cover of the following year's calendar, shot by a named studio, Three Dog's Photography.

How can supporters build a bigger total for an entered pet?

A paid ballot changes what rallying support means: every backer has to complete a $2 purchase, so reach matters as much as enthusiasm. Moves that fit this contest's shape include sending the gogophotocontest.com/ncpas link straight to likely backers, asking each of them to vote early in the window instead of crowding the final evening, and assigning every willing helper a specific day so purchases spread across the calendar rather than stacking at the close. The public leaderboard lets an entrant's circle watch exactly where their animal stands while there is still time to react.

Timing carries extra weight here because submissions and voting ran side by side in 2026: a purchase made during the entry stretch put an animal on the board before its circle had even started promoting, and any late surge had to climb past totals already accumulated earlier in the window.

NCPAS prints no guidance on outside assistance for entrants, so anything beyond ordinary promotion is a judgment call each supporter should measure against the ballot's Rules tab. Broader tactics for ranked public votes are gathered in this site's votes guide.