although some photos might make it look easy, not every dog is a natural model and not every dog actually knows ‘stay’.  although the essence of any scruffy dog shoot is dogs being dogs (and cats being cats, of course!) … letting them do what they’re going to naturally do, have fun and let loose … a good portion of the shoot requires a certain level of staging, anticipating, planning and setting the dog up.  sometimes it’s as simple as throwing their favorite toy in the direction we would prefer they run, other times it’s a little more complicated … and then, there’s the fencepost technique.

i decided to offer this as a blog entry because the following photo receives a lot of attention and questions, especially when we had a 30×40 of it hanging at Woofstock last month.   when people see it — besides a rather predictable “aw” — i get a lot of  “oh my god!”s, and “how!?”, and “why?” … even, “did he get up there himself?”

that’s Oxford up there, balanced on a 4′ fencepost in the middle of a soybean field.  and no, he didn’t get up there on his own … after all, this isn’t scruffy monkey photography.  also, don’t worry, dad was inches out of frame, hands at the ready, in case my sweet little model mistakenly believed he was wearing a Superman cape and took flight off that post.  safety first.  always.

so, why did we put Oxford on a fencepost?  well, several reasons …

(1) because it was the only thing to put him on in the middle of that field, and when a young, energetic dog doesn’t have a firm ‘stay’ command and is zipping in and out of the soybean plants, one of the best ways to get them to stay still for even a minute, is to put them on something.  granted, it doesn’t have to be something this high or this challenging.  a tree stump, a rock, a park bench … all work fine as a ‘place’.  with a more defined place or object on which Rover is expected to stay, his boundaries are clearer and the exercise is clearer … and sure, it could take a few tries, but eventually, most dogs figure out that the trick is to stay on the ‘place’.  and yes, this works for cats too!  of course, rewards follow … as do some awesome photos.

(2) i wanted to get Oxford higher.  we had great skies, and a lovely landscape, but there was no way to capture that with such a shorty, and with him zigzagging amongst the soybean plants.

and (3), the owners had seen a recent blog entry featuring Miles — the original fence-post balancing terrier.

Miles was a seasoned pro…

… fence posts are his forte.

and Oxford proved to be a bit of a superstar himself …

to be honest, these little guys rather enjoy the higher vantage point, for a change … and really take the opportunity to check out their surroundings.  Oxford seemed to know exactly what we were hoping for …

perhaps he’d seen Miles’ blog entry?

but like i said: safety first.  don’t try this at home.  🙂