Excitement and confusion

While I was awaiting the dishwasher guys arrival yesterday afternoon I decided to do a shoot with my dogs. I haven't done an "official" shoot with them for a while; just the everyday grab a shot is what I usually have time for. So I thought maybe I'll get a cute Christmas type shot for a card; we'll see how it goes.

So I got out the treats and went through several dress rehearsals. Everyone gets very excited when we are working with treats of course. And amazingly enough; Luke's gets the most excited. Surprisingly because he is just so/so on food but with his reactive personality he becomes overly excited very quickly. We started with "let's all sit together." This is fairly simple except that Luke tends to move if someone touches him.

Tilley is my base dog; like a rock and unflinching so she get's placed first. Luke is next; I have to work with him very calmly and matter of fact like. Once he is in place I try to get Jessie in between without TOUCHING LUKE. Easier said than done; when I say without touching Luke I mean NOT TOUCHING. Not one hair can be touched without him flying out of position.

Now of course I can touch him and if I do alot of big touching I can place Jessie without him noticing that she is actually touching him. Normally he doesn't mind nearly as much about the whole "Jessie is touching me" issue but when he is overly excited it seems to be the much worst.

Okay now that we have everyone sitting together I decide to ask everyone to wave at the sametime. The poodles are amazing and Luke is waving his face off; Jessie not so much. The wave has always stumped Jessie; she is very short so maybe my hand being up over my very tall 5' 1" body confuses her. She likes to sit up; you know on her hind legs with her little arms in the air so she always defaults to this.

So while doing all of this I come up with a cute idea for a shot. They are amazing models; so easy to work with and stay like statues. It's a real treat to work with them.