Sponsored Post: I am being compensated by Look Who’s Happy for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The last time Rigby was hanging out on the blog, a few commented about how well-behaved he was for photos, and how their dog would never pose like that. I thought sharing a few of my “trade secrets” and tactics to get my challenging dog to pose might be helpful! Read on if you’re curious how I get Rigby to pose for my shutter snapping.

How to Photograph Your Dog

1. Teach commands
I’m assuming most of your dogs know sit and down, but if they don’t, that’s just where you should start! Once they’ve mastered those two commands, I started working on “leave it”, “stay”, and “look”. For leave it, I taught by first placing tasty treats in my hand. Rigby would sniff at it, and as soon as he stopped he would get a click and a treat. (We train new tricks with a clicker, which if you’re unfamiliar with clicker training, check out this article!)  We worked up to putting treats on the floor and letting him sniff at it with my hand over the top until he left it, and then was clicked and treated. We worked on this over and over until he would leave the treat pile alone for extended periods of time.

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