Humane Society of Greenwood Photo Contest (Happy Tails Brew / Pet Calendar): How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the HSOG Pet Calendar Contest and who runs it?

The Humane Society of Greenwood Photo Contest runs under the on-site banner HSOG Pet Calendar Contest, with the 2026 edition filed under the subtitle Happy Tails Brew / Pet Calendar. It is a fundraiser for the Humane Society of Greenwood, an animal shelter whose sponsorship line places it at 2820 Airport Road, Greenwood, SC 29649. Entries are photographs of pets, and the ballot sits at www.gogophotocontest.com/humanesocietyofgreenwood.

Stakes are unusually concrete for a photo ballot. The Grand Prize is awarded on total votes received: the pet entry ahead of the field when the competition closes is presented on the front cover of The HSOG Pet Calendar, and its people choose which month their pet will be placed in the calendar. That turns every vote cast in late March into a direct push toward a printed, physical prize.

Quick facts

When does the Greenwood pet calendar vote happen, and which editions ran?

Dates for the 2026 cycle come straight from the contest's own rules text. The Submission Period opened Friday, February 20, 2026, at 8:00 AM Eastern, and shut Friday, March 6, 2026, at 10:00 PM Eastern. Voting then took over: it began Saturday, March 7, 2026, 8:00 AM Eastern, and finished Sunday, March 29, 2026, 10:00 PM Eastern.

This is an established annual fixture for the shelter. Ballots went live for this pet vote in 2024, in 2025 and in 2026, all landing in the late-winter-to-spring slot, and the natural next step is a 2027 edition on the same seasonal rhythm. Dates for each new year appear on the contest's own pages when that version opens.

After the March 29 close passed, the ballot page flipped to a "Contest has ended" notice, and the shelter's plan called for winners to be contacted via telephone or email on or about March 31, 2026.

Published material leaves particular ground open: the labels attached to any entry groupings on the ballot, and the voting terms, meaning any cap on repeat votes, daily cadence or eligibility conditions. Neither appears in the contest text; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How does a supporter back a pet on this ballot?

In practice the ballot asks very little of a visitor. During the Voting Period, a supporter opens the contest address, selects the View Entries page from the site menu, scrolls through the pet photos that owners uploaded during the Submission Period, settles on a favorite and clicks the vote control next to that entry. Nothing about the flow requires a purchase or a special device.

The site's menu carries Home, View Entries, Rules, About Us and a Sign In link, so the contest keeps its terms on a dedicated tab instead of burying them in a footer. Whatever cadence applies to repeat voting lives there, which is why reading that tab first saves a supporter guesswork later in the month.

Entry-side, the rules text is explicit about photography rights: copyrighted images may be included only with the written permission of the copyright-holder. Owners enter by visiting the contest website and completing the provided entry information during the February-to-March submission stretch.

Closing is firm. Voting ends at 10:00 PM Eastern Time on Sunday, March 29, 2026, so a push that arrives after that moment lands outside the window entirely, and the total-vote count that decides the cover is complete from then on.

How does this pet ballot compare with other South Carolina contests?

South Carolina's public-vote scene leans heavily toward best-of rankings: the Best of South Carolina Awards, the BroadwayWorld South Carolina Awards for theater, Best of Charleston from Charleston City Paper, Charleston Magazine's Best Of, and Best of Columbia covering the capital's metro area. The Charleston Post and Courier Athlete of the Week adds a recurring sports angle to the same map.

Against that company, the Humane Society of Greenwood contest separates cleanly. It is a charity fundraiser rather than a consumer ranking, its subject is pets rather than businesses, venues or athletes, its home base is Greenwood rather than the coast or Columbia, and its prize is a printed calendar cover rather than a title or a plaque. A supporter's motives differ accordingly: backing a shelter animal carries a fundraising edge that a restaurant or salon ranking simply does not.

The voting experience also differs in texture. A best-of ballot usually spans hundreds of category slots across weeks, while this calendar vote funnels everything into a single pet field and a compact March window, which concentrates competition and makes every shared link matter more.

For readers weighing paid support across formats, the award-ballot support overview covers what carries over between contest types and what does not.

How can a supporter build momentum for a pet's entry?

Total votes decide the cover, so steady exposure across the whole March window beats a single burst. Moves that fit this ballot: share the pet's entry page on March 7 as soon as voting opens, ask Greenwood-area friends, coworkers and neighborhood groups to pass the link along, and post a reminder ahead of the 10:00 PM close on March 29. The guide to getting more votes online gathers tactics suited to charity photo ballots like this one.

On outside help, the shelter's published contest text does not spell out a stance on paid or automated voting; its Rules tab is where any such position would sit, so read it before committing money to anything. Readers considering that route can begin with the general buying-votes overview to understand the mechanics before deciding whether the investment fits a friendly calendar race.