Who will collar our prize title?
Popular contest returns
With the new year only days old, the search is on for the Observer’s Pet Idol of 2018.
Whether your pet is a cat, dog, gerbil, budgie, goat, horse, rat, rabbit or something more exotic, we want to hear from you.
Send us pictures of your beloved pet and we will print them in the Observer over the next few weeks.
A shortlist of 10 finalists will be drawn up and the winner of Pet Idol for 2018 will be chosen by a public vote.
And the pet to wear the crown will win a soonto-be announced prize and join a hall of fame of previous winners.
We had more than 500 entries to the inaugural Observer Pet Idol competition won by Milo, the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, in 2014, who was pictured sporting a red bandage after injuring his paw.
The family pet owned by James Thomson, Amie Morrison, Nicole Thomson and Sophie Thomson, from Fallin, polled more than half of the 835 votes cast in the final.
Paris the cat, owned by Michelle Stephenson from Balfron, was named winner in 2015, while in 2016 Millie the Westie, owned by Eilidh Macleod from Broomridge, grabbed the coveted crown after polling half of the votes cast.
To enter all you have to do is take a picture of your pet and submit it to the Observer with your name, the name of your pet and its breed, where you are from and how long you have had him or her.
You can send us a photograph you have taken specially for the competition or a family favourite snapped in the past.
Submit your photographs to the Observer at our office at 34 Upper Craigs, Stirling, email them to news@ stirlingobserver.co.uk or upload them to our Facebook page. We will feature them in both the Wednesday and Friday papers.
Usual Media Scotland competition terms and conditions apply.