Since 2006 we’ve proudly been celebrating World Animal Day in Hong Kong and mainland China — and each year sees a massive growth in the number of people who are passionately relaying the theme that dogs and cats are our friends, not food.

This year, our China Cat and Dog Welfare Manager, Irene Feng, and team in China, are heading up a photo contest, together with Tencent (one of China’s four largest portals, which has at least 70-80 million active clients using its microblog!).

From 4 October (World Animal Day) until the end of November 2011, award ceremonies of the very best photos will be hosted in seven cities in China (Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Beijing, Hong Kong, Xi’an, Dalian). Irene reports that already, an amazing 9,500 applicants have thrown themselves into this competition!

The winning photos will also be displayed in a tour of more than 10 major cities all across China by animal-welfare organisations joining Animals Asia in celebrating World Animal Day. Other events along the way include our 20th Dr Dog Anniversary celebrations, our Walkathon and Dr Dog Fun Day (our Fun Day this year will be even more special as we’ll be joined by our Ambassador and superstar, Karen Mok!).

We’ll be announcing the winners of the photo contest soon, but to give you a taste of the passion resonating across China, celebrating our four-legged best friends, here is a small selection of photos submitted:

We also look forward to sharing World Animal Day with our Hong Kong team and supporters on 15th October (grateful thanks to Marnie and Cassy for all their help in this effort), as well as celebrating our Dr Dog 20th Anniversary which originally saw one dog, Max, offering his huge golden paw to a bedridden boy at the Duchess of Kent Children’s Hospital in Hong Kong in 1991 — and has since seen over 350 dogs across 10 cities of Asia eagerly proving that the best doctor has a wet nose and a wagging tail!