We got engaged several months ago. And as excited as I am about getting married to the love of my life, I’m finding wedding planning to be decidedly un-dog-friendly. But, if you know me, you know that I’ve got to sneak my little mutts into the wedding somehow, and I knew the perfect way. . . engagement photos! So I did it, I set up a photo shoot and next thing I knew, we were off to Valley Forge Park for the big day!

Here’s what I learned about taking engagement or any other photos with animals, (this probably applies to children too ), take note:

1. Pick the right photographer! If you are going to take engagement photos with dogs, make sure that the photographer has experience working with pets. I picked my photographer, April Ziegler, specifically because she has an amazing way of getting dogs to open up to her. Oh, and she packed a bag of sausage and squeaky toys; that didn’t hurt either. Look at your photographer’s portfolio and make sure you like their pet photos. Chances are, if they can make other pets and their people look good, they can do it for you too!

2. Unless your dog is Lassie, ahem, I mean Uluru. . .it’s best to do some pre-session prep!

And even if your dog is incredibly well trained, there are things you can do to prepare for your session!If you’ve done any training with me, you should know that dogs are incredibly location specific. So I actually did drive out to Valley Forge park for a couple of obedience practice sessions with the two dogs before the big day. This helped them to desensitize to the area a little bit and learn to work there. It also helped that they were kind of tired on the day we did photo shoots. So a little exercise beforehand goes a long way!

3. Don’t sweat the small stuff! I was so excited about the photo shoot, that I did something that I never, ever do. . . took the dogs to the groomers for a professional bath and blowout.

They were sparkly clean and smelled great for the photo shoot. I didn’t even think of where we were going, their favorite hiking grounds. Why is it their favorite? Horse poop of course. Yep, within 10 minutes of starting our shoot, Porterhouse had found a swampy bog to jump in, and Uluru rolled in horse poop. But guess what, you can’t smell pictures. So take heed of my $100 lesson, and save the groomers for after the shoot. . .

4. There are things I didn’t practice that I wish I would have thought about.

Like sit stays while I walk behind the dogs. Our photographer did loads of shots of the dogs out front and us behind them. And Uli, being a good little herding breed dog, wanted to keep her eyes on me the entire time. So we got lots of pics of her with her head flipped back at us.

Here is a list of other things I wish we would have practiced more of:

* Recalls! You know, for those romantic, running across the fields into each others’ arms shots! *Leave-Its. Again, think horse poop and mucky bogs. *Stays. . . lots of stays. . . long duration stays. . . copious amounts of stays. . . *A signature trick! Uluru likes to balance things on her nose, we used it to our advantage for a very unique shot! (Just Check out the header!)

5. Your dogs will steal the show, embrace it; but make sure you take some pictures without the dogs too!

When we got the proofs, there were so many great dog photos. And our photographer really captured the essence of the relationship between us and our dogs! I think it’s because we just let go and had fun with our dogs. And it was easy to hide behind our very photogenic pups, but I was glad we were able to leave the wildlife in the car for a couple of the shots and capture our relationship as well.

So to wrap it up, we had an awesomely fun family day when we got our engagement photos with our dogs! And for the most part, things went off without a hitch. I hope this blog encourages you to get out there and take loads of great pics with your dogs! And if it does, please share them in our comments section!