When Brooklyn photographer Winnie Au lost her rescue dog — a Corgi named Tartine — to cancer about a decade ago, she was struck by how expensive the medical costs were. She decided she wanted to help raise money for needy animals with acute health issues.
“We were lucky at the time and had pet insurance that covered most of our costs. It was one of the reasons we moved forward with the chemotherapy and radiation treatments. But I realized that when your dog is sick or injured, it’s horrible to have to make medical decisions based on finances. So I vowed to do something about it,” she writes in the introduction to her new art book, “Cone of Shame” (out now; Union Square & Co).
The tome features photos of some 60 tri-state dogs, several of them rescues, in high fashion interpretations of the flimsy plastic cone collars pets typically wear while recovering from surgery.
Au, a 42-year-old editorial and commercial shutterbug whose work has been featured in Elle, People and many other publications, first started photographing dogs in cone collars in 2017.
She enlisted Marie-Yan Morvan, a designer/art director whose clients have included everyone from Fendi to Google, to create the cones, and decided to donate a portion of proceeds from print to Animal Haven’s Recovery Road Fund.
The initiative allows the rescue group to take in and care for creatures with challenging medical issues, and Au estimates that she’s raised in the ballpark of $10,000 for it over the years.
“I wanted to create something that was fun and kind of weird, but also give back to a cause I feel strongly about,” Au said.
The project grew and grew, and she secured a book deal in the early 2020s.
Morvan made custom cone collars out of everything from faux fur to pool noodles to suit the look of each dog. The cones were strictly for fashion, not medical, purposes.
A grey Bedlington terrier named Waldo wears an assortment of grey wool pompoms that look like an extension of the his curly coat and unique convex face.
A 7-year-old Old English sheepdog named Ryder sports a collar made with thick wads of pale pink batting that complements his fluffy fur.
“Sometimes we would find the dog first and build a cone on that dog’s look,” Au said. “Other times we concepted the cone and then tried to find the right look of dog that would fit with the cone.”
Her own dog, an elderly Basset hound named Clementine that she fostered after Tartine’s death and ended up adopting, is featured in the book. Designing a look for her was especially hard due to her long, droopy ears.
“The way they sat in the cone just kind of looked ridiculous,” she recalled.
So, Morvan fashioned a broader, ring-shaped cone, allowing Clementine’s ears to dangle freely. The collar was made with deflated balloons in shades of brown, tan and white that mirror the shape of the pup’s ears and color of her coat.
It’s a truly delightful image.
There’s this “mix of feelings you get when you see a dog wearing a cone,” Au told The Post. “It’s like sad but also funny and ridiculous and like you can’t stop seeing it.”
