They’re absolutely adorable, and picking the winners is going to be a difficult assignment, but pick them you must if you want a voice in who will be this year’s winners of The Sampson Independent’s Cutest Pets Contest.

Voting is already under way, and every pet owner with an animal in the contest is hoping you will select theirs as most deserving of the accolade. What’s more they hope you’ll tell your friends and they’ll tell their friends and so on down the line until one particular animal finds itself way ahead of the pack come March 6, when voting will end and winners will be crowned.

There are already several dozen gorgeous animals competing in the contest, sponsored this year by our good friends — and tremendous community supporters — at Badcock Home Furniture & More of Elizabethtown, Perrine, Wiley & Potts Orthodontics, Clinton Drug Company, Show Rooms Furniture and Tram Road Animal Hospital, but there’s still time left to get your own little furry baby registered and garner enough votes for the grand prize.

But don’t procrastinate too much if you want your little cutie to be considered among the dozens of others already vying for the three prizes — overall winner receives $100 and $50 will be given to the second, third, fourth and fifth place winners — and of course those ever sought-after braggin’ rights.

To vote and to register is a simple process that starts by visiting www.clintonnc.com and clicking on the Cutest Pets icon. Then just follow the instructions to get your animal entered into the competition or to begin voting, or both.

Voting and entering is completely free. All one has to have is a valid email address and the desire to have a little fun to either enter or cast your votes.

But we’ll go ahead and warn you — if you haven’t perused the contestants yet — that selecting the cutest will be no easy task. They are all some of the cutest animals we’ve ever seen, so cute, in fact, that you want to just scoop them up and snuggle with them.

There’s Prince Bartholemew, Callie Mae the cat and dogs that will just make you beam, like Harley and Bandit, Atlas, Lexi, Remy and Maggie, Zuma and Sam, just to name a few.

So far we have some, a few cats and kittens, a duck, a monkey and a plethora of dogs, large and small. Each one is worthy of the title, but, unfortunately not all can win. And it’s up to you to select which of the them will hold the titles, including Cutest Pet..

So visit our website today and start voting. Email your friends, send a Facebook message or both, and tweet up a storm, garnering all the support you can for the animal you think most adorable of all.

Then watch the newspaper and our website for the winners to be announced.

And, most importantly, have fun doing it. It’s what we and our sponsors want most from this contest — for the community to enjoy the competition and get involved.

We hope you do.