Dog Christmas Photos 2023

In October, we ran our traditional K9 Kodak Moments class - a 6 week dog tricks class that combines all those tricks into a super cool photoshoot.

I've got to confess, this whole theme started because:

1. I wanted to teach a tricks class, but I was bored by the random dog tricks that folks usually teach where the dog relies on a lot of handler help to do the trick.

2. I wanted to find an outlet for my side interest in photography and videography

After all, let's face it, it's a much prettier picture if you can't see the handler

in the Dog Christmas Photo working with the dog! In training, we took some extra training steps to make sure the dog was reliable in holding those poses with the handler being able to be off set. Teaching dog tricks are one thing, but I love pushing our training to a whole new level.

I have to give credit to my students this year - they really knocked it out of the ball park! Our Dog Christmas Photo theme this year was Decorating The Tree

The tricks that we learned to incorporate these shots included:

- Touch (perching two front feet on an elevated surface)

- Hold

- Mark (look at a designated target)

- Paw Target (teaching the dog to place one paw on a specific target

These dog tricks were layered together to create the beautiful photos you see before you today! Side Bonus: each of these students now have super unique dog Christmas photo greetings to send out to loved ones this year. Check out a sneak peak of what we created!