Bringing Your Dog to a Photo Session…

It’s about that time when photo sessions are picking up, and wedding season is quickly approaching. Many people consider their dog(s) a part of the family (as do my wife and I) and want to include the pups in some of their photos. As a photographer who started out with photographing dogs a lot, spent many hours in training classes with my dogs, and as an assistant to dog trainers; I wanted to make a blog post dedicated just to the pups in our families! So if you want to schedule a photo session with your dog and wanted a starting point, keep reading.

Bring someone along to help handle the leash.

It’s an exciting day getting photos together – especially if they are engagement photos! Dogs can pick up on the energy of their humans – and along with being outside – they can end up quite excited. Even well trained dogs can get worked up and choose to ignore your commands when you are out taking photos, so it is best if you have someone that your dog knows to hold the leash/keep your dog occupied when they are not in photos with you. If you leave a dog tethered away from you, or the photographer is holding the leash, it can be a huge distraction and can make everyone a little more tense than they want to be for the day.

I once had to be the dog sitter for my friend’s Golden Retriever during their engagement photos annnnnnnnnd I got some exercise out of that day LOL.

Positive reinforcement!!! (I mean this can be for anyone involved, but especially for your pups).

While in dog training classes at Heavenly Hounds Dog Training, one of the best analogies all the trainers gave was that “you would not work for free, so why should your dog?” To put it simply, we want to teach dogs what is expected of them by rewarding and praising anything good they do. If your dog has a solid understanding that when they offer a good behavior to you, they get rewarded, it will make things much easier on you (bonus points if your dog often looks to you when a distraction goes by or they are not 100% sure what they should do in a situation). You should also be aware if your dog is treat/praise/toy motivated for positive reinforcement, and any potential food allergies or sensitivities your dog may have.

For positive reinforcement to work best on a day where distractions are high (public locations, new people, being handled by someone else, possibility of other dogs), you want to bring high value rewards. Now that does not mean some kibble, just any bag of treats from the store, or cheerios – we mean break out the Benjamins!!! Some examples might be:

• Cheese or hot dogs

• Cooked chicken liver (my dog’s ABSOLUTE FAVORITE while we were training in nosework)

• Cooked beef or chicken

• Happy Howie’s Meat Rolls

• Freeze dried meat treats (such as Stella & Chewy’s)

• Kong with some frozen peanut butter/yogurt/kibble (to lay down and slowly eat)

High value toys may be

• Tennis balls

• Tug Toys

Some things you will not want to forget

• Waste bags

• Comfortable collar/harness with name tag and a good leash

• Water

• Feed a smaller meal than usual before the session so they will be a little more hungry and willing to work for food based rewards (and also hopefully not overfeeding them)

• Dog wipes (in case they get a little dirty or start to drool a bit)

• LINT ROLLER FOR THE TWO OF YOU!!!!

I was speaking to my dogs’ previous trainer about this post and was reflecting on some of the things I learned, and asked her advice. Sometimes it seems like there can be a lot of information and advice, but better to be over-prepared than underprepared, and let’s be honest, we want EVERYTHING to be as successful as possible.

If at all possible…have photos done in a place that the dog may be familiar with. If that is not a place you want photos done, then try to visit the location with your dog at least once to get them a little more familiar with the area.

You can also check out which times the location may be less busy than other times to avoid overstimulation with the dog (and hey, maybe you can catch a sunrise or sunset!)

If you are doing family photos, I’ve even had a friend hire me to go to their house so they could include their cat and dog…in matching pajamas…in their photos.

I am not a certified dog trainer, but as a photographer, I wanted to lend some of the information I may have to help others think of what they may need to prepare when bringing their furry family members to a photo session.

Special thanks to Alex for some of the help with bouncing ideas around with me while creating this blog post!