It stated in the decemeber photo contest rules that this month "holiday-themed" were prefered but not required. I have NOTHING to do with the winners or votes for first place and the runner ups. I only get to help choose the Tinkerbell's Closet staff winner. The winners are all chosen based on votes from the public.
Many of the people who win get friends, family and coworkers, family's co workers, etc etc to all vote for them, they also post on many dog forums, send out mass emails, and post places like MYspace asking for people to vote for them.
I have the polls set up so that no one can vote more than once a day so there is no cheating.
I also put probobly 15 long hours into setting up these contest and unfortunately this may be the last one because of many problems I have had.
This is just supposed to be a fun contest. Not only am I putting a lot of time into it but they cost me more than a hundred dollars in prizes, it cost me to have the voting polls, and website bandwidth cost me money too. I have had people send me nasty emails and comments about the dog's photos, winners, and accusing me of rigging these contest.
So I just wanted to throw that out there. I may not be able to do anymore photo contest which makes me sad as it was a really fun thing to do.