How we went from a nervous dog to a confident hero shot.

This bog is to illustrate just one example of how I work with very shy rescue dogs, the ones that have had a very rough start in life before being rescued. And sadly that mistreatment has led to some serious trust issues with new people. This gorgeous boy is a Spanish rescue, he’s part boxer and part pointer. He was taken on by a fantastic family, where he is adored and lucky enough to be looked after by his mum who is a dog behaviourist. His whole family has worked extremely hard with him to help him trust people again, and this thankfully has paid off and helped him to overcome his fears and start to trust new people again. However, that’s not to say that he isn’t nervous with new people and that he still needs a certain approach in order to ensure a positive outcome.

So what did I do? I started as I always do, by chatting with his mum before I met him, and asking lots of questions about his behaviour, his fears, what might scare him and how best to approach him. This helps enormously, as I get the best advice, from his pet parent, the one who knows him best and what to do to help this boy out.

Then when I met him, my approach was to play it very cool, not to try and approach him straight away, just a brief look and a smile, then promptly ignore him by chatting with his mum and then walking as we made our way to the photoshoot location. We took our time to get to the location, that way he got used to my company and knowing that I wasn’t there to ask much of him, and just little by little I started to interact with him, just by little glances and smiles, little utterances of hello. I agreed with his mum that I would give him little treats to break the ice, and that was cautiously accepted.

At the beginning of the photoshoot, I took some test shots to get my lighting right, my approach was to not demand anything of him, but just to have him stand with him mum and just be! He was kept on a long line, as he’s not so great on recall, and that was thought to be the safest way to work with him. The leash was removed by photoshop for all the final photos.

The photo above is a test photo where I was looking at the light etc before starting the photo session. You can see from his body language, just how nervous and unsure he was. He’s holding up his right paw, his ears are back, and he’s looking nervously at his mum for reassurance.

Once I’d got my lighting all set up, I decided he was looking far too stressed and nervous, so time to take a break, even before we began!!! So we went to the side of the path with him mum, just sat down on the ground and I talked to him and fed him treats for 5-10min, just gradually winning over his confidence. And that made the world of difference, he decided I was to be allowed into his circle of trust after that.

After our little break by the side of the road, he came up to me and gave me lovely kisses…so not only was I now in his trust circle, I was an acceptated new friend. From here on in, we were absolutely great and I managed to get more than enough photos for the session.

But, his mum and I agree, that this photo taken at the end of the session, is our absolute favourite. And why? Well because he’s standing with his paws up on a log, looking like he owns the forest, his shoulders back and his chest proudly forward, being a confident big dog instead of the shy nervous boy we started with. It’s a true hero shot, and it shows the absolute best of his personality and we no longer think this is a shy rescue dog. No, he’s the king of this forest, standing up strong, taking up his space in this world - a loved and gorgeous dog that he is.