Just think of all the photos you have clicked of your fluffy or scaly or feathery friend that you have stored away that you aren’t looking at, even though you really do plan to at some point. And that number is growing by the day.

Like most pet owners with a pet photo collection, you probably have shared some photos social media, saved others on your cellphone and computer. Others may be in a shoe box. The list goes on…

So, how can you bring them all together into a collection fairly easily and then what can you do with that collection?

One suggestion is putting all your digital pet photos on a site like Flickr.

Flickr lets you save your photos in one Photostream or into separate albums.

As you accumulate your pet photos in one main place, you’ll likely find it’s fun to go back and see how your pet has changed with time or relive memories that you had forgotten. It’s also nice to have all your pet photos in one place so you don’t have to search your computer, Facebook, email, etc., when trying to find a certain photo you took awhile back.

You can also easily download your photos from Flickr if you want to have a copy somewhere else. You can also email your photos, share them on Facebook, Tumbler, Pinterest and Twitter, and embed them in websites (all we had to do was copy and paste the web address of the photo of our cat, Buffy, to get it to show up directly below).

Another cool feature is the option to set your photos under a number of licenses. The default license is All Rights Reserved, meaning your photo is Copyright Protected, so others can’t use it without your permission (well, they can, but you can sue them). But, you can choose other options, including Public Domain, meaning that essentially anyone can use the photo without your permission for any reason.

Making your photos accessible under Public Domain or for use with Attribution in various forms makes your photos searchable to anyone on Flickr and other photo sites. If you set it to Attribution, this means that someone can use your photo for commercial or noncommercial purposes, but they have to give you credit. (For more on what the other licenses mean, go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/)

Instead of a friend of yours stifling a yawn as you attempt to share more pics of your furry friend, someone might be extremely grateful to see the twenty-five pictures of your dog getting a bath, or the dozen shots of your cat watching television, or whatever else you’ve posted. In fact, it might be exactly what they have been searching for.

Your photo(s) could potentially be used by a reporter looking for a photo to go with their article for a newspaper or magazine or website on a pet-related topic, a student working on a report about animals, a non-profit putting together a pamphlet about animal care, someone in need of graphics for a book about pet training, or for other useful purposes.

In return, if you go with the Attribution option, you could have the cool experience of having your name mentioned and photo(s) used in a publication or website.

Finally, Flickr makes it easy to upload photos from a desktop or laptop computer and caption the photos during the process if you choose. If you are uploading to Flickr from an Android, you can download a special app that lets you upload multiple photos at once.

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