It is pretty easy to get your dog to look at a camera when you take the picture yourself, however, when you want to be in a picture with your dog, it can become a little tricky to get your dog to look at a distant camera person. If you plan on winning competitions of agility, obedience or canine freestyle, teaching your dog to look at a camera is an essential skill. Everyone loves taking pictures of their dogs, and also looking at pictures of their dogs. If you are good at reading dog body language and facial expressions, it's easy to see how a dog is feeling by looking at the dogs picture. If you use intimidation to train your dog to have his picture taken (stay or else)- your dog will have a stressed look on his face in the picture. So the idea is, to get the dog to WANT to sit and have his picture taken, so that it is a fun experience for both the handler AND the dog, rather than JUST the handler getting a kick out of the picture taking session. 🙂
Respect the dog! Teach them what you want, and teach them to LOVE doing what you want!
Happy Training!
Never would have thought to train for something like this. I want to get my husband, our new 2 y/o dog, and myself pictures done in February.
I’m so glad I found your channel, you’re an AWESOME trainer!
Hehe COOL 🙂 If you have proofed a bomb proof stay, you can always get the photographer to make funny noises while your dog is staying, but I think it’s better to teach the dog the game first, so you don’t waist anyone’s time, feel stupid, or get annoyed at your dog for not having a clue as to what is going on. Good luck!
kikopup Yes! I’ve seen a professional “pet-tographer” that did my poodle’s and friend’s terriers. She carried squeeky toys and things that would make them prick their ears up and turn their head ever-so cutely. I’ll be working with Mr.Leonard on this….after he learns sit, stay, down, and up 🙂
Katelyn Rachelle
Cool. 🙂 Sounds like a nice photographer 🙂 However, if you do obedience and competitions, there are some competitors who play with squeakies while your dog is in the ring to try and get you to fail…. So if you are proofing your dog for competition it’s best to give them permission to look at funny noises, also not to just get up and think “Oh boy! A toy!” or “Yay, I am going to run over to that woman behind the camera!”
This made my morning. Glad to see you’re making videos again. Thanks for sharing this with us. Look forward to the next video 🙂
This is such a good idea not just for competitors, I think most of the pictures of my dogs are of them looking in different directions lol
Lol! I just love this, I normally have to wait and then cat my dog in a pose. I’m definitely going to do this.
Great tut! I know you have and get a lot of suggestions for videos, but I have a (hopefully) rare request. A ‘draw my life’ video. It would be nice to see how you have developed as a dog friend and trainer.
I don’t even own a dog, but I’m subscribed to you because I really love watching the way you treat your dogs and those of others with so much kindness, respect, patience and love. Really just different from the way I usually see people treat animals! You’re an shining example to all!
so true <3
Yes and I have 5 dogs so this was very helpful
Such and amazing trainer and teacher 🙂 I love how all your dogs sit there while you train the other. I think your pack is growing each time i watch a video lol 🙂
Excellent tutorial! Thank you for taking the time to make such well done videos.
The true dog whisperer! Simply the best dog trainer out there!
Another fantastic training vid, great at so many levels. Thank you x I’ve been looking for some good ringcraft vids and have struggled, but I can see a lot of this being useful.
I love your videos! Thank you so much for giving me the confidence to train my new puppy.
I love Splash! I can just imagine Splash watching you training the other dog and thinking ‘come on….just Look already! This is easy peasy!’
the most amazing part of this vid for me is the dogs sitting quietly when the clicker is going off. i only have two dogs, but this is a problem for me. i would really, really love a video showing how you got this behaviour. much thanx.
This is the coolest video I’ve ever watched! Thank you for this! It’s always super easy to get photos of my dog by himself, but I’ve yet to successfully take a photo of both of us together. I’ll definitely be testing this out!
Awesome post! Love your dog training videos. This’ll be a great one to teach my next dog!
“Bravo” made me laugh out loud! His response was so unexpected. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
I love this video, I know it is older, but sometimes something simple like this is what we all need especially since you work so close to the dog and it is usually a positive interaction with others and the dog loves getting it right. Very cute. We will be practising this soon I hope, we have been retraining close walking with surefooted steps since I have a rushy jumpy dog recovering from surgery and she so needs these slower up and down kind of training, posing will just make it more fun. blessings.
ps-love the Bravo had me in stitches.
Aww, this is literally the cutest thing I saw this week. Watching Splash posing for the camera just made me super happy.
She is pretty cute 🙂
Love this video! ♥ Great job – impressive, as always 🙂
Thanks! I’m gonna use this step-by-step tutorial to try and teach our dog how to do this. Just for fun 🙂