Holiday Hounds - And The Dogs Who Come Back Every Year
Every year, Holiday Hounds is one of my favorite events on the calendar.
It’s fun.
It’s festive.
It’s chaotic in the best, jingle bell-collar kind of way.
And it’s full of dogs who have grown up in front of my camera — the puppies who are now teenagers, the once-nervous dogs who now strut in like they own the room, and the families who come year after year because it’s become a part of their tradition.
It’s part reunion, part celebration, part joyful circus. Join the wait list for next year here.
But this year… this year had a moment that stopped me in my tracks.
A Familiar Face, a New Pup, and a Story I Never Expected
This year I spotted Melissa in the parking lot before she even made it through the doors.
She was smiling, leash in hand, her brand-new pup bouncing at her side — that wiggly, gangly, teenage stage where they’re still growing into those new long legs.
She hugged me and shared something heavy and heartbreaking:
She had lost her boy, Nelson, unexpectedly.
Only eight years old.
Cancer.
And then she said something that has sat with me ever since.
“I am so grateful we did that full session with him.”
Melissa told me how much comfort she’s found in holding Nelson’s album — the one we created after our session together at Duckpond Park. The session where he kept trying to sneak into the water after the ducks, and we kept laughing because we both knew exactly what he was plotting.
That album became the thing she reached for.
Not her phone.
Not a tiny square on a screen.
But something she could hold.
She said flipping through the pages helped her remember him as himself — beautiful, determined, joyful, Nelson.
Not the last days.
Not the hard part.
But the dog she loved.
And I stood there, listening, feeling the weight of what she was saying.
This is why I do what I do.
This is why I insist on artwork.
This is why I pour so much into every session.
Because the value of a photograph doesn’t always show itself on the day we take it.
Sometimes it becomes everything much later.
Her New Pup, a New Chapter, and the Full Circle Moment
Then she introduced me to her new pup, Jesse — bright-eyed, curious, completely unaware of the legacy he was walking into.
Watching him sit in the same spot Nelson once stood…
Seeing Melissa’s face light up when he looked at her…
It was one of those full-circle moments that reminds you how deeply dogs shape our lives.
They don’t replace the ones who came before. They simply start another chapter.
And how lucky am I that I get to help people tell that story year after year?
Holiday Hounds Is Never Just a Photo Event
It’s the place where:
Families come back to show me how much their dogs have grown
Nervous dogs become confident dogs
Puppies become seniors
And sometimes, we meet the next chapter after saying goodbye to the last
It’s where I get to witness the relationships that shape people’s entire lives.
It’s where I get hugged in a parking lot and trusted with stories that matter.
It’s where I’m reminded — again and again — that photography is about so much more than pictures.
It’s about love, and memory, and time, and the incredible privilege of being invited into people’s lives through the dogs they adore.
To Melissa — and to everyone who brings their dog back year after year
Thank you.
For trusting me with your artwork.
For letting me watch your dogs grow up.
For letting me celebrate them with you.
For letting me hold space for the hard parts and the joyful parts.
And to Nelson — the dog who kept trying to dive after ducks during his session — you were one of a kind.
Your album continues to do exactly what artwork is meant to do: Carry someone through.
