When I walked in the studio this morning I smiled. The faint scent of dog food drifted into the lobby from our viewing room. In our viewing room almost 1,000 pounds of dog and cat food was spread out all over the place, the aftermath of this past weekend’s event, waiting to be picked up and fed to dogs and cats without homes.

It never ceases to amaze me how generous people can be. This weekend we did our first benefit called "The Dog Days of Summer" for a local no-kill shelter All About Animals. We simply offered to photograph people’s pets in exchange for a bag of dog or cat food. The response was overwhelming. We even had people drop food by who didn’t want photos of their pets, they simply wanted to help.

We filled every slot we had for shooting pets. There was a never ending stream of pets flowing in and out our front door. We had two news stations and the local paper come out to photograph and film the chaos! The puppies slid around on our hard wood floors and the cats batted at our kitty toys as we bribed them with treats, hugged and petted them until we got the image for their owner.

One puppy came in that was the spitting image of my first dog Pepper I had when I was a little boy. I miss that dog. Pepper was my best friend and we used to have so many adventures in my back yard together.

Pets can be like children to people. This one sweet lady came in with her cat and said that the kitty was like a son to her. She explained that she didn’t have any really good photographs of her cat and that her cat was getting on in age. We tenderly photographed her cat and when we showed her the image on the back of the camera, she pulled a tissue out of her purse and wiped her eyes.

And at the All About Animals shelter, there are dogs and cats who are waiting there to be loved and who will be enjoying the generosity of all of you until they find homes with people who love them like you love your own pet.

We're working on the images and they should be posted soon. Check below for a fun slide show!

Thanks guys. Your generosity and your heart this weekend was truly amazing.