Jolie, a standard poodle, wears a collar of painted makeup sponges in Winnie Au’s new book “Cone of Shame.”

These majestic dog portraits are taking the shame out of the ‘cone of shame’

Photographs by Winnie Au
Story by Kyle Almond, CNN
Published September 14, 2024

Jolie, a standard poodle, wears a collar of painted makeup sponges in Winnie Au’s new book “Cone of Shame.”

It can be quite the sad sight: the family pet, recovering from surgery, having to wear that awkward cone on their neck to keep them from licking at their stitches.

They look miserable. They look silly.

But Winnie Au is hoping to flip the script with her new photo book, “Cone of Shame.” In these portraits, dogs are wearing fashionable collars that they can be proud of.

“I wanted to take that post-surgery humiliation — that saddest moment for every pet — and twist it into something beautiful and majestic,” Au says in her book. “I wanted to take the shame out of the cone.”

Penelope, a Samoyed, models a cone made out of drinking straws. “The inspiration for Penelope's cone was a sea urchin,” Au said.

Bodhi, a Shiba Inu, is better known as Menswear Dog on Instagram. "It was fun to get him out of a suit and into a really fun cone made of pool noodles,” Au said.

Candy buttons adorn the cone of Tofu, a bull terrier.

Au teamed up with designer Marie-Yan Morvan to come up with the cones in the book. Their dog models are sporting one-of-a-kind collars made from all sorts of materials — and it’s not just different fabrics or fibers. These cones also repurpose everyday household items such as drinking straws, makeup sponges and those foam noodles that float in swimming pools.

“I wanted people to think of them as works of art — not just your pet, not just the dog that you passed by on the street,” Au told CNN. “I really wanted people to pause and look at them.”

Some of the ideas would come from things found in nature or on the street. But many were also based to fit specific dog breeds.

“If I saw a dog with a unique look, I’d share it with Marie-Yan and we’d try to figure out how we can build a cone that complemented their look,” Au said. “Which I think is apparent with Calvin, the Komondor, and his yarn cone. And we did another one with a Bedlington terrier named Waldo and he’s got pompoms that kind of mimic the texture of the dog’s fur. Those are fun because it’s all supposed to be like, where does the dog end and where does the cone begin?”

Quincy Fox, a Pomeranian, wears a velvet cone. Au and designer Marie-Yan Morvan worked together to come up with the colorful cones and backdrops for each photo shoot.

Calvin the Komondor wears a cone made out of yarn. “Everyone on set was in awe when they saw him because it’s like you’re looking at a giant mop,” Au said. “(Komondors) have a very funny presence. It doesn’t look like you’re looking at a dog. We kept looking at him, trying to figure out, where’s the dog?”

There are 60 dogs featured in the book, and they came from a variety of sources. Au had worked with dogs before on past photo shoots, so she was able to start with contacts she had made over the years. But she also reached out to dog owners she’d see on Instagram, and they did casting on the street. They also worked with an animal agency to find rare breeds that weren’t easy to find in New York City.

Most of the dogs were easy to work with and would sit still while wearing their cones. But occasionally, they had their own agendas. Like Honeynut the dachshund, who kept prancing off set.

“Working with animals is chaotic, but that kind of what’s fun about it,” Au said. “Sometimes you’re spending all the time on set with it. I don’t really chase them — just try to wrangle them into a spot that you want them to be. You have to have a lot of patience. I end up doing a lot of squatting and laying on the ground with the dogs.

“Most of the time we’d all just be laughing. I always had a great crew with me. They all love animals, too. Everyone who was around understood animals and were comfortable letting them be themselves.”

“Lola the Saluki stood out for just being so beautiful and elegant,” Au said. “Everyone sort of gasped when she sat in front of the camera. It was like meeting a supermodel.” Lola is wearing a paper collar with beaded sticks that florists use in bouquets.

Izzy, an English bulldog, wears a cone of folded paper. "Izzy our cover star was an adorable model, but she definitely drooled all over her cone,” Au said. “So most of the retouching in the book went into drool removal.”

Photographing Patch the Dalmatian on this spotted backdrop “was kind of like seeing a ‘Where’s Waldo?’ book come to life,” Au said.

Au said most of the photo shoot preparation was about maintaining a calm environment for the dogs.

“We had quite a large studio. We made sure there was enough space for the dogs to run around and not feel squished,” she said.

They’d schedule about five dogs a day and give them each a one- or two-hour time slot so they could get comfortable on set and “walk around and sniff stuff.” It also allowed them time to take breaks if the dog needed them.

While one dog was on set, the next one would be in a separate holding studio. “When working with animals, you don’t want them in the same space at the same time, because they’re automatically distracted,” Au said.

Treats were always available on set, though Au said some of the best models were so trained they didn’t even need them.

Olive, a miniature schnauzer, wears fake pampas grass on a gray felt collar.

Sebi, a young Brussels griffon, wears artificial grass affixed to a plastic base.

The “Cone of Shame” project was inspired by Au’s late corgi, Tartine, whom the book is dedicated to. Au and her husband had Tartine for about a year and a half before the dog was diagnosed with throat cancer.

“We went through a long process of going to the hospital, doing chemotherapy, trying to save her, doing all this stuff that was very emotional and difficult,” Au recalled.

It was also expensive. Au and her husband had insurance to help cover the costs, but it made her wonder what it would be like for other pet owners who didn’t have thousands of dollars to take care of their pets.

So she is dedicating a portion of the proceeds from her book and print sales to Animal Haven’s Recovery Road Fund, which provides specialized medical care and treatment for animals in urgent need.

“I wanted to give back and turn the pain I experienced from having lost my dog into something better,” she said.

Hank, a wolfhound-sheepdog mix, has a collar made from a live pothos plant and an artificial string-of-pearls plant.

Kyrie the Weimaraner models a cone made of natural cotton. “During the photo shoot, she got so comfortable in her cone that she kept nodding off and falling asleep,” Au said.

Ryder, an Old English sheepdog, sports a cone of fluffy batting.

Behrang, a Great Pyrenees, has a collar made from colored coffee filters.

Pet cones are formally known as Elizabethan collars, for the ruffled collars commonly worn in England’s Elizabethan era.

The dogs in Au’s book evoke the same sort of dignity and pride that you might feel when you view old portraits from that time period. Even if the dog collars are made from surgical tubes or candy buttons or eggshells, they seem to glorify their canine subjects.

“I always want to show dogs in this majestic, regal way, kind of elevate them and treat them the way people have traditionally photographed and done portraits of humans,” Au said.

There are more than 125 photos in the book, and the colorful mix of dog breeds and creative collars will surely bring a smile to any dog lover’s face.

Au has called it “my love letter to all the good dogs out there.”

Waldo the Bedlington terrier models a cone of wool pompoms.

“Cone of Shame,” published by Union Square & Co., is now available. A launch party will be held September 15 at the Sommwhere studio in New York City, and there will be a silent auction to help benefit Animal Haven’s Recover Road Fund.