Expensive medical care for domestic pets has surged over the past few decades, especially for dogs, with costly vet visits and rising insurance rates. Dogs are not as resilient as I once thought (Lassie and Rin Tin Tin to the contrary). Among the most common medical devices for dogs, the neck cone is used to prevent them from exacerbating wounds or harming themselves in other ways. It is also an awkward-looking piece of equipment, which, for all I know, is as embarrassingly annoying for a pooch as a neck brace was for me when I suffered an ailment.
Regardless, it begs the question of how an implement that looks like a lampshade can be made more aesthetically pleasing and conceptually witty. How can it be transformed into art? Author/photographer Winnie Au and Designer Marie-Yan Morvan explore that in their new book, Cone of Shame—which will also raise funds for Animal Haven’s Recovery Road fund, and which Winnie Au discusses with me below.
(All images reproduced with permission from Cone of Shame by Winnie Au © 2024. Designs by Marie-Yan Morvan. Published by Union Square & Co.)
Like you, I’ve always felt bad for dogs who had to wear lampshades on the street. What inspired you to do these photographs?
Cone of Shame was born out of two things. I often see things in life and file them away in my brain as ideas for future projects. I had always seen dogs wearing cones post-surgery, and that image and shape was sort of seared into my head and floating around. I knew there was something strong about the visual and that I could do something interesting with it. I also loved how the cones made a dog look both sad and funny at the same time. And the cone has a transformative nature—when it’s worn, it really transforms the energy that a dog has. So I wanted to create a series that transformed our own vision of the cone. I decided to turn the cone of shame upside down and really make it into a majestic, beautiful and artful moment.
The second thing that made Cone of Shame into a series was the passing of my corgi Tartine. She was diagnosed with throat cancer, and after about a month of chemotherapy and endless doctor visits, we had to put her to sleep—one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever had to make. The whole experience was so difficult and sad, and it made me acutely aware of the high cost of medical bills for dogs. It made me want to make sure that other pet parents would not have to make any medical decisions based on finances. So I decided that the Cone of Shame series would help raise funds for rescue dogs with urgent medical needs. For every print, notecard, and now book sold featuring the Cone of Shame, a portion of the proceeds is donated to Animal Haven’s Recovery Road fund.
How did the pooches respond to wearing these?
I did a lot of work in advance of our photoshoots to vet each dog and make sure they would be comfortable wearing a cone. For dogs who didn’t have prior experience wearing a cone, we sent them plain plastic cones to get comfortable with in advance of the shoot. So first and foremost, the dogs had to be comfortable wearing a cone in order to participate in the series. On our actual photoshoots, the reactions would vary quite a bit. Some dogs did not even notice they were wearing a cone. For example, Kyrie fell asleep while sitting up wearing a cotton cone. To be fair, her cone did seem very cuddly and pillow-like. Other dogs had more abstract cones that required us to lift areas of them with fishing line on set (in order to get just the right shape for the photograph). This was the case for Finley the papillon, and Tia the shar pei. In some cases, wearing the cone required a lot of discipline from our dogs—they needed to be able to sit or stand absolutely still while we adjusted the cone to create the right shape. Some dogs, as expected, tried to shake the cone off. And we had the usual reaction—a bit of confusion/disorientation coming from our pups. Some loved staring at themselves in the mirror. Other dogs would just dance while wearing the cone—they would jump, they would get excited. And others did look proud, which was a vibe I was going for throughout the series. I mainly photographed the dogs with the hope that they would forget they were wearing a cone so I could capture their true personalities. Most of them would forget after about five minutes that they had a cone on.
Some of them are quite fashionable. Since dogs are now wearing shoes, sweaters and whatever else owners can think of, do you think at least some of the dogs enjoyed their cones?
Yes, I did try to cast dogs who already enjoy “wearing” things. So for a lot of them, they were not phased at all and [they] just enjoyed all the love and attention they were getting during the photoshoot. We, of course, had a lot of treats on hand, so for a lot of the dogs, wearing a cone = getting fed delicious treats.
You achieved some great poses. What surprised you most?
One of the challenges in doing a series of this size for a book was to try to not repeat the same shapes too much. And with dogs, there is such a wide range of dog sizes, fur and breed intricacies. This was a lot of fun to explore. I loved learning about each dog breed or type to understand what they could or could not do. Some of my favorite poses came from dogs whose cones mimicked their fur. The dog shapes became very abstract (for example, with Calvin the Komondor or with Waldo the Bedlington Terrier). It was fun to kind of watch the dogs disappear in front of our eyes on set, to wonder where the cone ended and the dog began. I do love some of the photos of the dogs stretching (Tia, Henry McGoober). It’s a moment that you just have to catch—most dogs cannot do this pose on command. And it feels like a really recognizably dog moment for all of the pet owners out there, but in placing it in context with the cones, it becomes this beautiful shape. The other pose I loved getting was when dogs jumped or danced in front of me. The shapes of the dogs could just be so unique and unexpected, and there’s just always something magical about seeing a jumping dog frozen in air. They look like they are flying.
Where did you find your models?
I have a network of friends/dog lovers who I reach out to whenever I have a dog project, and that usually results in some great recommendations. I also found some dogs in dog parks around NYC, on the street (I made notecards to give to dogs who I found photogenic on the street), on Instagram, and we also found some of the very unique dogs through an animal agency. I worked closely too with designer Marie-Yan Morvan (who made all the cones), and she reached out to her network of creatives to find dogs as well. I have been photographing dogs for a long time so I also reached out to some of my favorite dogs from past shoots to see if they wanted to participate in this series. The fun thing about working on Cone of Shame is people and their dogs are so excited to be a part of it, so the casting—while time-consuming to find just the right dogs—was always easy in a sense.
