Second Shot Partners With Kuranda Dog Beds to Improve Shelter Adoption Photography

The shelter intake-photo problem just got a hardware partner. Second Shot, the Tampa-based shelter dog photography initiative founded by Adam Goldberg, is partnering with Kuranda Dog Beds to incorporate the supplier’s elevated beds into adoption photo sessions across partner shelters.

The partnership pairs two organizations already deep in shelter operations. One supplies the beds. The other supplies the visual storytelling. Both want to produce adoption photography that better reflects who each dog actually is when they’re not stressed.

What Happened

Second Shot, founded by photographer Adam Goldberg of AGoldPhoto Pet Photography, photographs adoptable shelter dogs. The program replaces standard intake photos (often blurry, fluorescent-lit, and showing scared animals) with professional portraits and short-form video.

Goldberg has run the program nationwide since 2013, when he started photographing shelter pets as a volunteer in Tampa. He has since photographed thousands of dogs across partner shelters including the Humane Society of Tampa Bay and Halifax Humane Society, where Second Shot photos kicked off the national “Clear the Shelters” campaign.

Under the new partnership, Second Shot will incorporate Kuranda Dog Beds into its photo sessions as part of the setup. The beds are orthopedic, elevated, and chew-resistant. They give dogs a more natural perch during photo shoots than typical kennel floors.

Goldberg framed the move as a comfort-first decision. “Shelter environments can be stressful, and that often shows in a dog’s intake photo. By incorporating Kuranda Dog Beds into our sessions, we’re not only creating a more comfortable experience for the dogs, but also producing images that better reflect who they truly are.”

Kuranda Dog Beds has manufactured elevated dog beds for decades and is a staple supplier in U.S. shelter operations. The company runs the long-standing ShelterBeds donation program at shelterbeds.org, which lets shelters create wish lists and direct donors to fund specific bed donations at discount rates with free shipping to the shelter.

“At Kuranda, our mission has always been to provide comfort and support to dogs in need,” said Beth Klein, Kuranda’s Director of Marketing. “Partnering with Second Shot allows us to extend that mission even further, helping dogs not just feel better in shelters, but also get seen and adopted.”

The partnership was announced May 1, 2026.

Why It Matters

The shelter intake-photo problem is well documented in the rescue community. Standard kennel-floor photos shot under bad lighting consistently produce poor adoption-listing performance, particularly for harder-to-place dogs like pit bull mixes, seniors, and dogs with medical needs.

Second Shot’s whole positioning has been that professional-grade photography meaningfully improves adoption rates by changing how dogs are presented online. Petfinder, social media, and shelter websites are where most adoption decisions actually begin.

The Kuranda angle adds a specific operational layer. The beds are already in many shelters via the ShelterBeds program, which means partner shelters using both organizations can run sessions without extra equipment cost.

For shelter operators, that’s a practical takeaway. The bigger one is what the bed does for the dog. Kuranda’s elevated, orthopedic design gives a stressed shelter dog a calm, dedicated spot during the session, and that calm shows up in the dog’s posture and expression. The dog looks relaxed. The dog looks cute. The dog looks like itself.

That difference matters at the listing level. A photo of a dog comfortable on a bed gives potential adopters a vision of that same dog at home. The mental frame shifts from “shelter dog” to “my dog.” For dogs that have been overlooked because their intake photos read as nervous or aggressive, that reframing is often the difference between getting clicked on and getting passed over.

For Kuranda, the partnership puts the brand in front of the moment of adoption itself. Adopters who see the bed as part of the dog’s shelter journey connect it to the dog they’re choosing to bring home. The Kuranda becomes a safe space the dog already knows, and adopters get a small, concrete way to continue that comfort once the dog is home. That’s a more durable brand introduction than any direct-to-consumer ad placement.

For brands and service providers in adjacent shelter categories like food, supplies, training services, and grooming products, the partnership is a useful model. The shelter and rescue ecosystem rewards collaborations that produce visible adoption outcomes more than it rewards pure sponsorship optics. Integration with ongoing shelter operations carries more weight than logo placement, and this partnership is structured around exactly that distinction.

For Goldberg specifically, the partnership extends a sponsorship-driven model that AGoldPhoto introduced previously, where companies and sponsors fund Second Shot photo shoots in exchange for visibility. Sponsorship support has helped scale Second Shot from photographing roughly 10 shelter pets a month to nearly 50.

Adding a recurring product partner like Kuranda, rather than a one-off sponsor, moves the model from project-based funding toward something more like a category-defining shelter content program.

What to Watch

How the photography looks at scale. Second Shot’s Instagram (@agoldphoto) and the AGoldPhoto blog will surface the first Kuranda-incorporated sessions in the coming weeks. Goldberg’s work has built a substantial audience, and the format will spread fast if it works.

Shelter adoption metrics. Both organizations will likely report uplift figures from partner shelters running Second Shot sessions on Kuranda beds. Year-over-year adoption rate changes at participating shelters are the metric that matters here. If those numbers move, the collaboration model will get replicated by other photography-and-product partnerships in the shelter space.

Source: Second Shot press submission, May 1, 2026. More: agoldphoto.com, shelterbeds.org.

This news brief is based on a company-submitted announcement. The Underbite verifies claims where possible but cannot independently confirm all details.