In response to an online promotional, the other H. sapiens I live with and I took the dogs to have professional heirloom quality portraits made at Platinum Portrait Artists in Dallas. It was a fun experience; the co-owner and photographer Shane did a great job moving quickly through the session and keeping it interesting and easy for us and the pups.
The experience exposed an idea for a useful trick, which is: getting the dogs to look at a camera while someone else is holding the camera, and while I am in the picture with the dogs. Gunner, good boy that he is, has been so reinforced for looking at me that he won't take his eyes off my face if I'm in the photograph.
We weren't able to get any good pictures of the five of us, which is ok since we wanted pictures of just the dogs anyway. Another useful trick idea is working with the dogs as a threesome to get simultaneous behaviors, like a triple sit, down, or stand stay. The circus act is growing.
Pearls:
- Getting everyone cleaned up and groomed, and in front of a camera with no leashes or collars was interesting, and exposed some ideas for new tricks
- Photographing animals is challenging; today I learned that a small, heavy ball the size of a ping pong ball wrapped in cloth with short streamers attached to it makes a good object for the photographer to toss up lightly into the air to make good ears and cute expressions
- When all else fails, there's always photoshop
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