Having more than one pet can be a lot of work—I have two and that keeps me hopping. But what about 4? And all rescue dogs. Recently I photographed a couple who rescues dogs—primarily Shar Peis. And most of these have a lot of issues that kept them from being adopted.
They were great dogs as well as people. Organization is the key when photographing more than one pet. It’s good to have people who can handle the other pets while an individual one is being photographed. In this case the couple took care of 3 of the dogs while I photographed the individual shots. Bring lots of favorite treats or toys to help keep them occupied.
It’s good to go into a session like this with reasonable expectations. If all the dogs don’t normally sit well together at home without any human involvement then you cannot expect them to suddenly play nice together in a strange studio for a portrait. So with groups of dogs we work the humans into the portrait to keep the peace and all of them together. There can be times when we can photograph a few together at a time then create an image in post production.
Being relaxed is the key for any good dog portrait session but is especially important with multiple dogs. Dogs can and will feed off your energy. If you are excited or upset they will react as well. So it’s important to be relaxed and calm. No need to worry about your dog running around and burning off a bit of excess energy or peeing on the floor. It happens. Yours will not be the first or last dog to do so!
If you have multiple dog and you’d like to set top a portrait session give us a call @719-475-0160 and we can schedule a consultation to help make the session the best it can be.