Winners of the 2025 International Pet Photography Awards

With an expanded 2025 edition, the International Pet Photography Awards is showing an even wider range of talent in the world of animal photography. This year’s contest had over 4,000 entries from 45 different countries. The competition was fierce, but in the end, photographer Katie Brockman walked away with the title of International Pet Photographer of the Year.

An award-winning St. Louis-based photographer, Brockman added the title to her already impressive list of achievements. Using her dogs, as well as foster animals, as models, her creative photography put her in a class above the rest. “The dog in two of these images is my own dog, Caldwell, who has been my best model since I started photography a few years ago,” she shares. “All the other animals are my former foster pets, and one of my goals by entering these images was to show that rescue animals can not only make loving family members, but fantastic models, too.”

While dogs dominated the field in terms of subject matter, followed by cats and horses, this year also saw a wide variety of pet entries. Pigs, cows, chickens, parrots, lizards, snakes, frogs, rabbits, ferrets, and goldfish were all included in the mix, with Ellen Reus’ beautiful studio portrait of a snake even winning the inaugural Open Portrait category. “I’m so happy and proud,” Reus remarked. “Especially because this shows that even if your pet is a snake, you can still get beautiful studio portraits of them. I really love photographing snakes, they’re incredibly photogenic!”

From documentary images of stray dogs to charming portraits of cats, this year’s winners are a delightful look at the world of professional pet photography. Scroll down to see more of our favorite winners and head over to the official website to see the complete gallery of winners and top 100 finalists.

Katie Brockman was named the winner of the 2025 International Pet Photography Awards.