Happy New Year! What? That's right, today - February 16th - is Chinese New Years Day and 2018 is a Year of the Dog (let's hear a "woof"!). Chinese New Year is a movable celebration, dictated by the lunar cycle, which can fall anytime between January 21 and February 20.

In Chinese astrology, each year is related to a Chinese zodiac animal according to the 12-year cycle. The Dog is the eleventh of all zodiac animals. According to one myth, the Jade Emperor said the order would be decided by the order in which they arrived to his party. Monkey, Rooster and Dog were in another country, helping a god defeat evil spirits (of course the dog was; it was probably a Retriever, they're always so helpful!). After, they set off to the party together. Because they arrived at the same time, the Jade Emperor went by the order they met the god in the other country. Thus, Dog became eleventh.

Not surprisingly, Dog is the symbol of loyalty and honesty. People born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They are honest, friendly, faithful, loyal, smart, straightforward, venerable and have a strong sense of responsibility (I *wish* I were a dog, but alas I'm a Dragon - we won't get into what that means!).

As we enter 2018 year of the dog, it made me think back to 2017 which was a "year of the dog" for me.  As many of you know, I volunteer at two municipal shelters every week taking pictures of the animals there to improve their chance of adoption. At the beginning of 2017 I decided to expand that and invited some local rescue groups into the studio with their dogs to give them a leg up in finding their forever homes too!  

I'd like to introduce you to four local rescue groups in North Texas that are doing fantastic work and and the images that I made for each in 2017 (these are by no means the only dogs they rescued, these are just the ones that I photographed!).  I'm proud to be associated with them as you can read on the Volunteer Partners page of this site.