Pet Pride's Cool Cats Calendar Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Cool Cats Calendar Contest is and who runs it

Plenty of New York animal ballots let supporters click for free. This one does not. Pet Pride's Cool Cats Calendar Contest is built as a paid fundraiser from the ground up: every vote costs a dollar, every entry costs ten, and the money supports Pet Pride of New York, a rescue organization operating from 7731 Victor Mendon Road in Victor, New York. That paid structure is what separates this ballot from the reader's-choice programs around it, and it is also why the calendar contest reads less like a popularity poll and more like a donation drive with a photo gallery attached.

The product at the center is a calendar. Supporters submit photos of their cats, the public votes, and the organizer prints the winning kitties on its annual calendar. The ballot itself lives on GoGo Photo Contest, a hosted platform for nonprofit photo fundraisers, at the address gogophotocontest.com/petprideny-2025. Entry and voting both happen on that single page, with a Sign In control for supporters who want an account and a View Entries grid for anyone who just wants to browse the cats.

For quick reference, the program's fixed details sit in this table.

The dated record for the Cool Cats ballot

Two editions of the Cool Cats Calendar Contest are confirmed: 2025 and 2026. The 2025 ballot is the better documented of the pair, because its full schedule was printed on the contest page. Photo entry opened August 15, 2025 and ran through September 15, 2025, at ten dollars per photo with no limit on how many photos a supporter could enter. Voting then took over on September 16, 2025 and closed October 15, 2025.

The organizer's own framing puts the 2025 run in a longer story. The contest page opens with "Pet Pride is having its 3rd annual online photo contest for our 2026 calendar," which makes the ballot a fundraiser for the following year's calendar rather than the current one. That gap between the voting year and the calendar year is worth remembering when a supporter tries to work out which edition they are looking at.

Several things the organizer leaves off the page matter just as much. Pet Pride of New York has not published a category breakdown, an eligibility list, or the round dates for the cycle after the 2025 ballot; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The 2025 page also carried a plain "Contest has ended" notice once October 15 passed, so anyone landing on the URL today sees a closed ballot rather than a live one. Dates for the next edition have not been announced.

How a supporter votes on the Pet Pride ballot

The 2025 ballot ran one continuous public vote with no separate rounds. A supporter landing on the GoGo Photo Contest page for Pet Pride's Cool Cats Calendar Contest could browse the View Entries grid without an account, then sign in when ready to spend. The pricing was flat: one dollar bought one vote, and a supporter buying in bulk simply bought more votes in the same transaction. There was no free voting option on this ballot, which is the single biggest difference between it and the free-click contests elsewhere in New York.

Entering worked differently from voting. During the August 15 to September 15, 2025 entry window, a supporter snapped a photo of their cat, uploaded it through the Enter control, and paid ten dollars per photo. The organizer explicitly welcomed multiple entries, telling supporters they could enter as many photos as they like. Each entered photo then competed in the same September voting round.

The page also carried a Sign In control, an About Us link back to Pet Pride of New York, and a Rules link. What those rules contained beyond the dollar-per-vote price is not stated anywhere the organizer published; the ballot sets no visible cap on how many votes one person may buy, and the organizer does not publish the accompanying eligibility text.

Where this ballot sits among its New York neighbours

Two other animal fundraisers sit closest to Pet Pride's contest in New York. The Buffalo CARES Animal Rescue Calendar Contest runs the same calendar-product idea for a rescue in a different part of the state, while the Chautauqua County Humane Society Hot Dogs Cool Cats Photo Contest widens the field beyond cats to dogs as well. Both are separate programs with their own organizers, their own platforms and their own windows; a vote for one contributes nothing to the others.

Beyond the pet vertical, the state's best-of ballots, including Best of Brooklyn, Best of Hudson Valley, Best of New York City and Best of Queens, cover restaurants, shops and services rather than animals. Those contests usually run on free voting with nomination rounds, which is exactly the model Pet Pride's contest rejects. Where a best-of ballot monetizes through sponsorships and charges supporters nothing, the Cool Cats ballot monetizes through the votes themselves.

For a supporter deciding where to spend effort, the practical difference is simple. A dollar on the Pet Pride ballot is a donation to a Victor, New York rescue with a calendar as the prize; a vote on a best-of ballot is a free click in a popularity race. Readers comparing the two should also read our guide on how to get more votes online, since the tactics that work differ between paid and free ballots.

Strengthening a photo's standing in this fundraiser

Strengthening a photo's standing on this ballot looks different from a free contest because every vote is a dollar. The most direct route a supporter has is organizing their own network: family, coworkers and fellow cat lovers who each buy votes on the GoGo Photo Contest page during the September voting window. Since one dollar buys one vote, a small group pooling even modest amounts can move a photo up the grid quickly, and the money goes to the rescue either way.

Pet Pride of New York publishes no statement about third-party vote services or automated voting, so supporters weighing outside help have no organizer guidance to lean on. The one mechanic the organizer itself sanctions is the dollar-per-vote purchase, which makes paying for votes a normal part of this contest rather than a workaround. For a wider view of the options, see our page on buying votes online, and for the legal framing see whether buying votes is legal.