Help Us Select the IPWatchdog ‘Dog of the Year’

You may have noticed that every Friday, we run a weekly column we call “Other Barks and Bites” where we share newsworthy topics from that week that were not otherwise covered in their own article.

I am sure it also does not come as a surprise to anyone that those of us at IPWatchdog are dog lovers. Gene and I have six dogs of our own, including three sets of male/female siblings ranging in age from 10 months to 6 years of age. Not only are we dog lovers, but our employees are as well, most of whom have dogs of their own.

If you have been to IPWatchdog Studios in Ashburn VA, you have seen that Gene and I have photos of all of our past and current dogs in the hallways just outside of our training room. Midway through the year in 2024, one of our employees asked us if we would be willing to hang photos of their dogs on our office walls. Of course, I said yes, but thought, why limit it to us and our employees.

So, I came up with an idea for an IPWatchdog “Dog Wall” at IPWatchdog Studios. I mentioned it to Gene to get his thoughts, and he not only thought it was a great idea but suggested that we’d be able to use those images for our weekly Barks and Bites column in lieu of stock images of random dogs, which we have done now for the last 83 weeks.

Our Editor-in-Chief, Eileen McDermott, suggested that we do a dog of the year “award” from those that have been used as the featured dogs each week. In 2024, we used 31 dog images throughout the year, and in 2025 we used 52. The employees of IPWatchdog have collectively selected our favorites from each year, with the caveat that we were not allowed to select our own dog(s), and now we would like you, our readers, to help us select the IPWatchdog Dog of the Year. Following are the nominees for the 2024 and 2025 IPWatchdog Dog of the Year award!

To vote, please select one dog on each of the TWO forms below and click “Submit Your Nominee”: