Dogs in high fashion cone collars raise money for local little ones in need

When Brooklyn photographer Winnie Au lost her rescue dog — a Corgi named Tartine — to cancer about a decade ago, she was hit with expensive medical costs. She decided she wanted to help raise money for animals in need with acute health problems.

“We were lucky at the time and had pet insurance that covered most of our expenses. It was one of the reasons we moved forward with chemotherapy and radiation treatments. But I realized that when your dog is sick or injured, it’s terrible 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 about 60 tri-state dogs, some of them rescues, in high-fashion renditions of the flimsy plastic conical collar that pets typically wear while recovering from surgery.

Au, a 42-year-old editor and commercial whose work has been featured in Elle, People and many other publications, first began 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 the proceeds from the print to the Haven Animal Recovery Fund .

The initiative allows the rescue group to take in and care for creatures with challenging medical problems, and Au estimates that she has raised $10,000 for it over the years.

“I wanted to create something that was fun and kind of quirky, but also give back to a cause that 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 match any dog’s look. The cones were strictly for fashion purposes, not medical.

A gray Bedlington terrier named Waldo wears a variety of gray fur pompoms that look like an extension of his curly coat and uniquely convex face.

A 7-year-old Old English Sheepdog named Ryder has a collar made of thick pale pink tufts that complement his fluffy fur.

“Sometimes we would find the dog first and build a cone in the image of that dog,” Au said. Other times we conceptualized the cone and then tried to find the right dog look to fit the cone.

Her dog, an elderly Basset Hound named Clementine, who she kept after Tartine’s death and ended up adopting, is featured in the book. Designing a look for her was especially difficult because of her long, droopy ears.

“The way they sat in the cone just looked ridiculous,” she recalls.

So Morvan created a wider, ring-shaped cone, allowing Clementine’s ears to hang freely. The collar was made with deflated balloons in shades of brown, tan and white that reflect the shape of the dog’s ears and the color of her coat.

It’s a really cool image.

It’s this “mix of emotions you get when you see a dog wearing a cone,” Au told The Post. “It’s like sad but also funny and funny and like you can’t stop watching it.”