How to Include Your Dog in Your Session
Dogs are the best additions to any portrait session, whether it’s your engagement session, graduation session, or a puppy-and-me session. If you’re a little worried about your fluffy friend, here are my best tips for how to include your dog in your session!
Tire Them Out
One of my best tips for how to include your dog in your session is to tire them out right before we meet up. They’ll be more likely to not run around, they’ll sit still for longer, and they’ll be happy little pups. Take them on a long walk or to the dog park and let them run around to their heart’s content.
Bring Someone to Help
My number one tip for how to include your dog in your session is to bring someone to help. Bring a friend, a parent, or hire someone on a site like Rover. They’ll be there to hold the leash and any other things you bring, so you don’t have to worry about what your dog’s doing when you’re not looking. This way, we can focus on the session and include your dogs only when we want to.
Another benefit to this is if we have two different locations. We can do one location with your dog in casual clothes, and another location with a more dressed up look. Lauren and Clay planned their engagement session so well! We were able to include their little fluffball AND get those mountain sunset photos they had been dreaming out!
Bring Treats
If your dog is food motivated (and even if they’re not), bring treats. We can reward them with the occasional bone if they’re doing a great job. Treats can also help if they’re having a bit of a hard time sitting or settling down. We can also get really cute photos of you interacting with your dogs when they’re entirely focused on you.
Along with this, bring water so your dogs have all their needs met!
Bring Toys
Not only can we reward them for good behavior with toys, but we can get some adorable photos of you interacting with them. If you want to remember their favorite toy, this is a great opportunity to capture it. This is also a great way to tire them out if they still have some leftover energy.
Bring a Lint Roller
Bring a lint roller to get dog hair off of your clothes if your fuffy friend is inclined to shed. We can swipe down your clothes in between shots and get you looking as good as new.
Be Prepared for Dog-Only Photos
If you put a dog in front of me, I’m going to 1. pet it, and 2. take photos of it. Of course we’re going to get several photos of you with your dogs, but I’m 100% going to get photos that just feature your little fluffball. We’re all going to thank me later.
Show Your Dogs You Love Them
This is an obvious one, but after the session, make sure you let your dogs know that they did a great job and that you love them. Spend a little extra time giving them belly rubs and tossing the ball around, and tell them that they’re a very good dog. When you get the photos, feel free to show your dogs what great models they were.
Kidding, but only kind of.
If you’d like to see a session with a dog, check out Lauren & Clay’s engagement session.
If you’d like to have your own session with your dog, contact me!
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