This year I  thought it was be a great idea for my boyfriend John and myself to have a picture of our 3 dogs on our Christmas card.

I set up a holiday backdrop and started on our Christmas card photo session. My hopes were high. I thought I could get one dog at a time into the studio and then stitch together a composite image for the card.  If you have ever taken pictures of dogs, you know that they aren’t the most cooperative subjects, but they do respond nicely to treats, in much the same way that little children respond to Smarties.

I took one dog at a time down to the studio.  The dogs are never allowed in the studio and being there made them anxious. Their number 1 priority was to leave, as seen in this image of Fergus. I tried with Maddie and Zara but it was hopeless. I needed a new plan.

I waited for John to get back to my house and enlisted his help. I took my best treats, some yummy bacon snacks and put all three dogs on leashes. John was in charge of giving them the treats and keeping them in line. It wasn’t easy as I also wanted them to look at the camera.

They look a lot happier in the thousands of pictures that I have of them running on the beach, which only goes to show how hard it is to pose a dog and make them smile for the camera.

But I did get something. The best ones are below.

But those statically posed and somewhat puzzled dogs do not in any way represent the character of our dogs. And isn’t photography about capturing more than a replica of who the person is. Shouldn’t it be about that person/dog’s nature.

The images below capture who our happy, fun, joyful dogs are.

I think what I will do it cut and paste them from these images and use them in a card.

What do you think?