Downtown Denver's Daniels & Fisher Tower will once again turn into a giant pet photo album this December, projecting dogs, cats, and other household companions in 4K across its historic facade. The Tails on the Tower slideshow returns just after dark on December 12, with a repeat showing scheduled for January 17, 2027.
The event asks pet owners to submit a photo through an entry form along with a $50 donation, according to KDVR. That fee is a steep drop from the $200 donation required when the fundraiser launched in November 2024 alongside Denver's Parade of Lights, as reported by the Denver Gazette. Entries are open to dogs, cats, and what the station describes as furry, feathered, or reptilian companions, with submissions available through Humane Colorado's website.
All proceeds go to Humane Colorado, which uses the support for its work battling pet homelessness and animal suffering, per the station's report. The slideshow itself will be visible at 16th Street and Arapahoe Street and will repeat on a loop until midnight on the night of the main event.
A Century-Old Shelter With a New Name
Humane Colorado is the beneficiary behind the glowing pet photos, but the organization carries a much longer history than its current name suggests. It was incorporated back on September 8, 1910, by founder Mrs. Jean Milne Gower after she toured animal welfare groups in London to study how to set up Denver's first formal shelter, according to background provided by Humane Colorado. In its earliest days, the organization rounded up stray dogs around Denver and housed them in nearby Edgewater.
For 115 years, the group operated under the name Denver Dumb Friends League, a title it officially retired on March 7, 2025. As CBS News reported at the time, the rebrand to Humane Colorado was meant to drop the outdated word “dumb,” which historically referred to animals lacking human speech, while keeping its core shelter mission intact. The organization's scale remains substantial: national shelter outcome data for the 12-month period ending in September 2025 shows Humane Colorado saved 9,777 cats in Denver, and the group provided more than 74,000 nights of safe shelter to animals in fiscal year 2025, as previously reported by Hoodline.
The Tower's 210,000-Lumen Canvas
The technology that makes the pet slideshow possible predates the fundraiser itself. Night Lights Denver, a permanent projection mapping system launched by the Denver Theatre District in November 2019, projects 4K content onto the tower.
The platform was designed as a kind of people's projector, intended to display free, non-commercial public art and civic visual installations on the landmark without corporate advertising, according to 5280 Magazine. The pet slideshow is one use of the projection platform.
Submission Rules and a Landmark With a Past
Entrants hoping to see their pet projected in December need to follow a specific set of guidelines. Official rules for Tails on the Tower require high-resolution images free of human faces, corporate logos, text, heavy edits, or digital overlays, per the Denver Gazette. Accepted entries include dogs, cats, horses, and small pets, regardless of whether they were adopted through Humane Colorado.
The building hosting all this is itself a piece of Denver history. The Daniels & Fisher Tower is a Denver landmark.
The tower remains a Denver landmark.
