Lay Z Gaga Is Lady Gaga's Doggy Doppelganger

www.layzgaga.com

Lady Gaga may have met her canine soul mate in a 7-year-old poodle named Max.

Photographer Lara Jo Regan, 47, of Los Angeles, partnered with Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary to create a Lady Gaga-inspired calendar of Max to raise awareness for stray animals.

"Max just seems like a gay, aging aristocratic diva," Regan told ABCNews.com. "When we got his hair cut, there was just something about him that made us think he would be a Lady Gaga fan and dress like her, except he doesn't really have the budget. I started joking around with my husband thinking if a dog was a Lady Gaga wannabe, and they were overdrawn at the bank, how would they concoct their outfits?"

The "Lay Z Gaga: Bred This Way 2013? calendar portrays Max in a different Gaga-esque outfit for each month. The calendar shoot was the first time Regan had ever dressed Max up, and she said "Max loves the attention."

But the poodle was not born this way. He was a stray, rescued and re-styled by Regan, who adopted the adorable pooch.

"He's a mortgage meltdown adoption. His original family lost their house in the housing meltdown," Regan said. "They fell on bad times. Like so many animals that were victimized by that, the family had to move to an apartment that doesn't allow pets. He's a refugee of the great depression."

She said she couldn't be happier with her decision to take Max in.

"He has this dignity about him," she said. "He has a heart of gold. And he loves clothes, he loves getting dressed up."

Max isn't the first animal that Regan has rescued and turned into a doggy-diva. She also adopted "Mr. Winkle" several years ago, whom she photographed in outfits for calendars that garnered enough attention to land him a role on HBO's "Sex and the City."

"Mr. Winkle was an adopted stray," Regan said. "He really became the poster child of the beauty and potential of adopted animals. As an artists, I like showing beauty in things where you don't expect.

"I apply that way of thinking to unwanted animals that people don't see a lot of potential in. I like to show the beauty and humor in stray animals. I always in my animal art use adopted animals. They're just so wonderful."

Regan has been the proud owner of Max for about a year and a half.

To see all of Max's Lady Gaga outfits, click here.