Thank you to everyone who posted stories and voted in our Dogs Change Lives contest! Each story is such an inspiration! We've read about dogs that have alerted their families to fire, dogs that have helped their owner recover from illness, dogs that have stuck by their owners during rough times, and dogs that have changed people's lives just by being their cheerful, loving selves.
We hope you enjoyed reading these stories as much as we did!
Voting is now closed, and we are currently tallying the votes. The story with the most votes will win $1000, but we're also giving away plush stuffed animals to the 10 runners-up. Our judges are also reading the stories and they will select the most compelling story of a dog that has changed a person's life. These story will win the $500 Life-Changer Award.
We will announce the winners later this week.
Even though the contest is over, we invite you to go back to DogsChangeLives.org and read the stories. Our lives have changed from reading them and we're sure you'll find inspiration in them, too.
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HI !! I ENJOYED READING EVERY STORY, BUT I DO THINK THAT IF THIS IS DONE AGAIN IN THE FUTURE,YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT DOING IT DIFFERENT. I THINK YOU SHOULD AWARD A DOG FROM 2 SEPERATE CATAGORIES. ONE FOR SERVICE DOGS AND ONE FOR PEOPLES PETS. IT IS SO HARD TO READ THE STORIES ABOUT THE SERVICE DOGS, AND NOT FEEL THEY ARE FAR BETTER THAN THE REST, BUT THEY GO THROUGH FAR DIFFERENT TRAINING THEN MOST DOGS.YOU ALMOST FEEL AS IF YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR THEM BECAUSE OF ALL THE TRAINING AND ALL THAT THEY DO FOR THEIR MASTER. BUT YOU ALSO HAVE PEOPLES PETS, AND TO THOSE PEOPLE, THEY ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT DOG, WHETHER THEY LISTEN TO THEM WHEN THEY CALL THEM, OR JUST THERE AT THEIR SIDE FOR THEM WHEN THEY ARE GOING THROUGH TOUGH TIMES.EVERYBODY FEELS THEIR DOG IS THE BEST. I ALSO THOUGHT IT WAS NICE WHEN YOU LEFT THE COUNT UP, SO PEOPLE COULD SEE WHOSE DOG WAS IN THE LEAD. I THINK SOMETIMES WHEN YOU SAW YOUR DOG WAS FALLING BEHIND IN VOTES, YOU RALLIED EVERYBODY AROUND TO HELP GET THE VOTES BACK UP.
ReplyDeleteDogs are angels put in this earth to guardian, protect and most of all to provide us with love.
ReplyDeleteWe're so glad you enjoyed reading the stories!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback about the contest. That's a wonderful idea to have separate categories for service dogs and pets!
i am sorry , but i did not like the way the voting was done, and i won't participate again !! when you stopped posting the vote tallies, it started to look like it was rigged !! not to mention the fact the dog that won was a ssd !!
ReplyDeleteWe appreciate your feedback about voting on our Dogs Change Lives contest. We have certainly learned a lot from holding the contest, and all of your feedback will help us make improvements for next time.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, a few people tried to cheat in the Dogs Change Lives contest, and the vote tallies were extremely inaccurate as a result. We decided to remove them from the website. Because of the cheating, we had a third party audit all of the votes to make sure they were legitimate. Our biggest concern was to make sure the contest was fair for everyone. All dogs change lives in so many ways.
Please let us know if you have any other suggestions for improving the contest. We want to do everything we can to make the next contest better.
The Dogs Change Lives website will remain up as a tribute to all of the wonderful dogs that have changed so many lives.