Oshkosh's NEW Top Dog 2023: How Voting Works & How to Win

What Oshkosh's NEW Top Dog is and who runs it

Most public-vote ballots in this part of Wisconsin ask readers to choose a business or an athlete. Oshkosh's NEW Top Dog asks an older question instead: who's a good dog? The programme is a fall pet fundraiser run by the Oshkosh Area Humane Society, a shelter whose postal address sits at PO Box 554, Oshkosh, WI 54903. Its own pitch is hard to mistake for anything else in the market: "raise funds for animal shelters, pets, and kids throughout Northeast Wisconsin", described on the ballot as every dog (and beer!) lover's dream.

GoGo Photo Contest is the host, a photo-contest platform whose pages carry a Participate, View Entries, Prizes and About menu around a Sign In control. The voting address for the 2023 edition is https://www.gogophotocontest.com/newtopdogoahsfall2023. The vertical is pets, the vote is open to the public, and the market is Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

What separates this ballot from the readers-choice contests and athlete polls nearby is its shape: a single shelter, a single subject, dogs, and a fundraiser structure rather than a ranking of local businesses. The table below gathers those fixed facts in one place.

Editions and voting windows for the Top Dog ballot

For this programme the confirmed edition years number three: 2022, 2023 and 2024. The 2023 ballot carried the name Oshkosh's NEW Top Dog 2023 and printed its important dates plainly: September 8 as the day contest registration and voting begins, and September 30 as the day registration ends, voting ends and the winners are crowned.

The 2024 edition shifted later into the season. Its window ran September 27th through October 26th, 2024, with registration and voting opening together on September 27 and closing together on October 26, when the winners were again to be crowned.

Two things the humane society leaves out of print. No year after 2024 has been announced for a future edition. And the ballot page shows neither a category roster, an eligibility rule, nor any rule about how many times one person can vote; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Between cycles the ballot page shows a contest-has-ended banner, so a supporter arriving outside a live window sees the closed state rather than an open ballot. That makes the printed dates the only reliable signal for when to come back.

How a supporter votes on the Top Dog ballot

Voting happens on the edition's own GoGo Photo Contest page. The menu a supporter meets is short: Participate, View Entries, Prizes, About and Sign In. A supporter who wants to follow the field opens View Entries; a supporter who wants to enter a dog uses the Participate side during the registration window, which on this programme opens and closes together with voting.

The money step is what makes this ballot unusual among Wisconsin public votes. The Oshkosh Herald's report on the 2023 edition described the mechanic directly: contestants encourage their friends and family to vote at $1 apiece for their dog. Each vote is a dollar that supports the humane society's fundraiser, so the act of backing a dog and the act of giving are the same action.

The page notes its clock in Central Time, and the 2023 page crowned the top vote-earning dog as the NEW Top Dog for 2023. Once the close date passes, the ballot flips to a contest-has-ended notice and the vote controls go quiet until the next edition opens.

Where the Top Dog ballot sits among Wisconsin public votes

Oshkosh's NEW Top Dog shares its state with six confirmed public-vote programmes on this site, and the differences are easy to state. The Big Cheese 107.9 Howl-O-Ween Pet Costume Contest is the closest in spirit, a pet ballot tied to a radio station and a Halloween season, while this programme is tied to a shelter and a fall fundraiser. Two of the siblings are sports polls, free to vote and weekly in rhythm: the Cellcom Athlete of the Week from the Appleton Post-Crescent, and the basketball player of the week from Bound Wisconsin. Best of the Valley (Appleton), Best of Madison and Best of Milwaukee Readers' Choice are business readers-choice ballots covering whole cities.

Against that field, this ballot differs on three points: the subject is always dogs, the organizer is always the Oshkosh Area Humane Society, and the vote carries a dollar figure rather than a free click. A reader who wants a pet ballot with a radio-station flavour can compare the Big Cheese 107.9 Howl-O-Ween Pet Costume Contest, and readers who want the wider Wisconsin market can start from the Best of the Valley, Appleton, WI page or the Best of Milwaukee Readers' Choice page.

Building support for a dog on this ballot

Support in this programme is built on people, not on timing tricks. Because a vote costs a dollar, the practical move is the one the Oshkosh Herald already described: contestants encourage their friends and family to vote at $1 apiece. Share the dog's entry link directly, ask in person as well as online, and remind supporters that the window closes on the printed end date, after which the ballot shows a contest-has-ended notice.

The ballot page carries no statement about voting software or automated voting, so a supporter planning any outside help should first read whatever terms the humane society itself publishes. Our votes guide covers outreach that works on public-vote ballots generally, and the award votes page explains the category this fundraiser falls into.