Windsor WinWag Photo Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Windsor WinWag Photo Contest and who runs it?

The Windsor WinWag Photo Contest, printed on town material as the WIN WAG Photo Contest and billed around town as the Windsor Top Dog vote, is a municipal dog photo contest run by the Office of the Town Clerk for the Town of Windsor, Connecticut. The Clerk's office at 275 Broad Street administers the town's dog licensing, and the contest exists to support that job. June is dog licensing month in Windsor, and the spring ballot reminds owners that state law requires a license for any dog aged six months or older. Licensing also depends on current, unexpired rabies information from a veterinarian being held by the Clerk's office, and dogs that have been spayed or neutered are licensed at a reduced rate.

The ballot lives on the town's own forms subdomain at https://forms.windsorct.com/winwag-contest/ rather than on a commercial contest service, and questions go to townclerk@townofwindsorct.com. In the sponsor's own words, all Windsor dog owners are invited to take part in the contest to "raise awareness of dog licensing month in June." The vertical is pet photography, the pool of entrants is limited to Windsor's dog-owning households, and the programme answers to a town office rather than to a publisher or a brand.

Quick facts

When does the 2026 WinWag cycle run, and which editions are confirmed?

The 2026 cycle carries a pair of published windows. The entry period opens at 8:00 AM EST on May 1, 2026 and closes at noon (12:00 PM) EST on May 14, 2026, which is when Windsor owners file their dog photos. Public voting for the contest winners then starts at 8:00 AM EST on May 18, 2026 and stops at noon (12:00 PM) EST on May 31, 2026. Both windows sit inside May, ahead of June's dog licensing month.

Editions are confirmed for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, and the Clerk's own material calls it the annual Win Wag Photo Contest, tied to annual licensing efforts. On that pattern the next round would fall in 2027.

Gaps remain. Neither a category roster nor a rule on how often a supporter may vote is printed on the Clerk's contest pages; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Cycle timeline

How does a supporter vote for a dog in the WinWag contest?

Voting is deliberately plain. During the public voting window a supporter opens the ballot at https://forms.windsorct.com/winwag-contest/, looks over the dog photos that Windsor owners filed by May 14, picks a favorite and submits. There is no separate nomination ballot to work through at the voting stage, because entry and voting are divided into their own spans, and the page describes no sign-in step beyond reaching the form.

The practical notes follow from that shape. The Clerk's page sets out no limit on how often each supporter may vote during the window, so a household planning repeat visits is governed by whatever the live form accepts. The ballot is also free to reach, with no payment step printed anywhere on it, and it behaves the same in a phone browser as on a desktop.

Because the field is local, the arithmetic stays simple: every valid submission counts toward the dog it names until the noon close on May 31, 2026, and the Clerk's office owns the count from there. Nothing on the page complicates that with weighted rounds, judge panels or entry fees for voters.

Where does the WinWag ballot sit among Connecticut's pet and best-of contests?

Two other dog-centred ballots run in Connecticut alongside WinWag. The 2027 Fidelco Guide Dogs Calendar Photo Contest puts photographed dogs into a calendar for a guide-dog organisation, and the Dog Star Rescue 2026 Calendar Contest does the same calendar work for a rescue group. Both carry an organisation's name and a calendar format; WinWag carries the town's, and its job is licensing rather than fundraising.

The media camp is larger. Best of Hartford and Best of New Haven, both from the Hartford Courant, rank businesses across whole cities, while Best of Connecticut and Moffly Media's Best of the Gold Coast widen the frame to the state and to the Gold Coast.

What separates WinWag is scope and stakes: a short May window, a single-town entry pool and a civic purpose behind dog licensing, with the Clerk's office as referee instead of a newsroom or a rescue charity.

How can a supporter give a Windsor dog a stronger shot in the WinWag vote?

A town-sized ballot rewards local reach. Share the ballot link with neighbors, family and dog-park contacts, spread reminders across the whole voting span instead of relying on a single-day push, and ask the people who already know the dog, a groomer, a trainer, a veterinary clinic, to pass the link along. Because every entrant comes from the same town, personal connection travels further here than on a statewide media poll.

The Clerk's office publishes no guidance on third-party voting help, so anyone weighing paid support should start from the general methods collected at get more votes online and, if a purchase enters the picture, the award-ballot overview at buy award votes. Whatever route a campaign takes, the noon close is the hard edge of the window.