Without further ado, please give a grrr-eat big round of a-paws to Steve Howell and Cody who are the #ChuckitChallenge champs this year after getting an incredible 20,856 votes!

They’ve been working so hard spreading the word and getting all their friends and furry fans to sup-paw-t them over the last month, so we’re thrilled that they can now look forward to a well-earned break − with the £1,000 holiday with our friends at Forest Holidays. Don’t worry though, while they decide on their destination, King Cody will be kept entertained with a host of new Chuckit! toys too. Well, he was the pupstar of the show after all!

 

 

We also want to say a big thank you to our runner up Tyrion, who will be getting a brilliant hamper full of Chuckit! toys, treats and more for his ef-fur-ts during the challenge this year too.

A second runner up hamper (of equivalent value) will be donated to the dog welfare department at Wood Green, The Animals Charity.

Finally, we want to thank all of you for voting and getting involved in the #ChuckitChallenge 2018, and for your patience while we conducted an audit into the voting stage.

In the interest of fairness and transparency, we took all comments and feedback regarding the competition on board and have spent two weeks undertaking the audit of the votes that were cast to ensure all allegations regarding voting issues were investigated.

We have explained how this process was undertaken and the outcomes below:

-       The secure, well-recognised and established voting platform WooBox allows us to export results from the voting stage in a spreadsheet. In response to queries regarding the data this platform gathers from voters, we’d like to reassure everyone that all votes are anonymous and the only details accessible within this export are:

  • A randomly generated ‘user ID’ code for each voter
  • The date and time the anonymous votes were cast
  • The ip address (which lets you identify vague geographic areas of voters, for example, ‘London, UK’.)
  • The vote that was cast (ie, the dog’s name) and the corresponding vote index (ie, option 1, 2 or 3).

-       No additional data has been gathered, and therefore no additional data can be stored.

-       In response to questions about the robustness of the ‘one vote per Facebook user per day’ limit, we used the export to run a cross-check of individual voter ID numbers with the dates their votes were cast. In all of the instances we cross-checked, there were no votes cast within the same 24 hour period.

-       To clarify, in instances where users cleared their cookies or used a different browser, they may have been able to view the voting page again, where it would appear they were able to vote again. However, our audit has proven that none such votes registered when WooBox refreshed at 8am each day.

-       In instances where voters reported seeing other contestants’ vote counts increase when they were voting for their favourite, this was due to high voting volumes and individual browser settings which meant the voting results were not always recorded in real time. Again, this was rectified when WooBox refreshed at 8am each day.

-       In response to queries regarding fraudulent votes, we audited IP addresses and dates to check that no automated voting in large numbers has occurred, and to again ensure that no votes had been cast within the same 24 period. All of the audited votes that were cast were found to fully comply with the rules outlined in the Chuckit! Challenge Ts and Cs. None exceeded usual permitted voting limits and none had suspicious IP addresses to suggest fraudulent or fake accounts infiltrated the competition.

We thank you all again for your patience while we conducted this audit, and hope these results reassure you that the process has been fair and compliant with all rules outlined in the Ts and Cs.

Now we have crowned our official winners, don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled on our social media pages for pup-dates from Steve as his prizes will be on the way to him and Cody over the next few weeks − we have a feeling the pictures with their prizes will be pawsome if his entry is anything to go by!