Cement It In Your Plans, This Year’s Calendar Features Shop Dogs
Few things in life make a person feel better than snuggling up close to a warm, fuzzy dog. It just helps makes a person feel better.
And with the Dogs of Cement City Calendar, produced annually by Matt Morris and Tiffany Cara, others can benefit as well. The calendar, which began in 2019, can now be ordered for $20 each (plus shipping), with sales benefiting Manna House and Fostering Hope Animal Rescue.
“I’ve worked with dogs in some capacity since 2006 – from veterinary technician, to contraband dog handler, to now owning my dog training and dog photography businesses (The Balanced Canine),” Morris said. “Tiffany and I started this project during the summer of 2018 with two separate calendars, Dogs of Cement City and Scenes of Midlothian. We quickly learned that having two calendars each year was a daunting endeavor and decided to solely focus on Dogs of Cement City for 2020 and later.”
The calendar has been a big hit and its creators say they enjoy making it.
“Matt is the photo and dog man. I manage the other aspects of the project, photo shoot appointments, layout design, printing, ordering infrastructure, and shipping,” Cara said. “Matt, his wife Tami, and I work together to come up with each year’s theme.”
Each year they post the theme of the calendar on social media and work with whoever responds. For example, 2021 and 2022 were focused on dogs catching treats and the funny photos that resulted The theme for 2023 is centered around dogs that join their owners in their places of business within Midlothian.
They collect photos starting in August or September with a goal for 14 to 15 usable images. Then, they go through them and choose which ones are most visually appealing.
“This year the theme is Shop Dogs that work in Midlothian. So that keeps the model population lower than a generic dog photo,” Morris said. “Previously, we have done food catch calendars, a dog’s ability to catch a cheesy poof or popcorn kernel naturally kept our model pool low then.”
Manna House is a staple in Midlothian, working with in-need Midlothian residents, providing food, utility assistance, clothing, and other resources makes them an obvious choice to benefit from proceeds, Cara said. They’ve been a recipient of proceeds from the beginning, in fact.
“They receive a lot of food donations, but food donations do not pay the rent and salaries necessary to bring those services to life,” she said.
Fostering Hope is a 501c3 (nonprofit) no-kill foster-based dog rescue in Midlothian. It is strictly volunteer based. Virtually every dollar raised goes directly to the care of the dogs they rescue.
Also, the Midlothian Animal Shelter has also benefited from calendar sales in the past.
Calendars are available for order at https://form.jotform.com/82326839299977. They ship out the second week of December via USPS Priority Mail to arrive just in time for Christmas.
