Ruff day? Cheer yourself up with the winning pictures from Dog Photographer of the Year

If there’s one thing everyone loves, it’s pictures of dogs.

Sneakily taking candid photographs of cute dogs on the Underground and sharing them with your mates on a group WhatsApp is basically a therapeutic hobby, so it’s no surprise that someone’s launched a ‘Dog Photographer of the Year’ competition to celebrate the people who do it best.

This year’s awards had nearly 10,000 entries from people in 74 different countries around the world including Canada, Russia, Brazil and New Zealand.

Judges had the pretty impossible task of whittling down thousands of cute dogs to one overall champ, as well as winners across several important categories including ‘Oldies’, ‘Rescue Dogs’ and ‘Dogs at Work'.

But which dog impressed the judges the most and took home the award for the most photogenic of the bunch?

This image of Yzma, an adorable Golden Retriever Cross lying at his owner's feet, was crowned overall competition winner - as well as coming first in the 'Man's Best Friend' category.

There are snoozing hounds, overgrown puppies, obedient lapdogs and adorable rescue pups in the rest of the award-winning photographs, which are all being shown at Kennel Club in Mayfair this month.

But if you can't wait to see them in the flesh, click through our gallery above to feast your eyes on all of the winners.