Dogtography. Kaylee Greer
Tail/Tail Straight Back: Neutral, otherwise busy exploring
Low Tail: Submission, concern, potential discomfort
Wagging Tail: happiness, comfort, joy
Stiff Tail, Tucked and Held Low Between Legs: Tentativeness, fear, discomfort, submission
Rapid Wagging Tail with short strokes: Nervousness, anxiousness (exceptions for breeds like Jack Russell Terriers who display rapid, short wags when excited or experiencing positive anticipation)
Keep in mind that not all rules are hard and fast, and not all tail positions mean the exact same thing in each dog. A dog’s shape, size, and general anatomy can vary greatly from breed to breed. Use this list as a general guidepost but let your research and experience guide you in the greater scheme of things. It’s important that you can translate the nuances of tail position and motion from dog to dog as you go through your adventures in dog photography and always know what your dog is trying to say.
1.13a
1.13b
FIGURES 1.13a and 1.13b Lola’s tail tucked between her legs indicates her tentativeness about this whole strange photo-shoot situation. Comparing her tail and ear position with Delilah’s—a very similarly shaped dog—you can see the difference the position of those features makes when it comes to conveying confidence in your final image.
COMBINATION BODY LANGUAGE CUES
More likely than seeing just one of these body language cues in a clear and isolated way, you’re ultimately almost always going to see a combination of all of the above. Body language is a very specific and thoughtful formula that the dog arranges to convey the emotions he’s experiencing. Once you’ve begun to notice each body language cue on an individual level, you’ll begin to see that often the cues are doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled up in a clear show of emotion. You’ll need to understand and interpret each clue on an individual level, and then have the ability to translate what they mean when presented together.
Lip licking, turning away.
Paw up, lip licking.
Yawning, ears back, stress pant.
Turning away, whale eyes, tail tuck.
1.14a
FIGURE 1.14a Sweet Mochi started off her photo shoot just a little bit unsure. This photo is one of the first shots I took of the day. As indescribably aw-worthy as this tiny girl is, the photo is a perfect display of anxious body language cues. What indicates to you that she might be feeling uncomfortable? Her tentative paw up, ready for flight; her slightly anxious open mouth pant; and her ears held back. The photo below was taken about 30 minutes later, once Mochi had more time to get to know me, be positively reinforced for sitting in front of my camera, and warm up to the process overall.
1.14b
FIGURE 1.14b This photo displays great relaxed and confident body language. Her ears are now held high, her paw is down, and her mouth is closed. (You might be saying to yourself, “but good King Odin in Asgard, her little pink tongue and open mouth expression is so cute I could melt away.” I would have to completely agree with you. That said, it would be better to try and nail a shot with her mouth open in a soft pant, but be otherwise unaccompanied by those additional anxious body language signals.)
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WHY DOES POSITIVE BODY LANGUAGE MATTER?
Case Study: Daisy
So now that you know how to speak dog and translate the body language clues that your dog model is giving you throughout the course of your shoot, let’s talk about why it matters, and what it ultimately means for your photos.
Aside from setting up an environment and energy that’s kind and respectful to your dog model where he or she can really thrive, the body language aspect of things is so important because it shows in your images. Let me tell you about sweet Daisy here, to give you a really clear example of the difference that good body language makes in a successful photo.
When my assistant, Sam, and I met Daisy and her owner on-location, we were clearly instructed to take it very slow with her. (Thank you for the heads up, Pre-Session Questionnaire!) Daisy’s owner gave us the full scoop on Daisy before meeting her. Sweet Daisy had had a difficult life in the shelter before she was rescued. Leaving out all the hard details of her early and unstable life, what we knew of her history was that it had made her a more tentative, slightly fearful dog around new people. When we met on-location for Daisy’s shoot, we knew we had to start it all off on the right foot to make the whole day go as successfully as possible. With that in mind, Sam and I sat down to make ourselves as low, small, and non-intimidating as possible. We sat with our backs intentionally turned away from where we knew Daisy would approach, so as not to stare in her direction (remember, staring = aggression in dog language!). This allowed her to come up behind us on her terms and sniff us out while we gently spoke to her as nonthreateningly as possible. Once she got lots of good smells in and worked out that we might be on her side, we were able to slowly stand up and walk alongside her, giving her treats and positive reinforcement all the time. After about 20 minutes of these types of exercises (let’s call it “making friends with Daisy” time), I felt we were ready to begin the shoot. I slowly brought out the camera gear to introduce to her.
At that point, I felt pretty confident that we had built a nice, stable relationship with Daisy. “Ah yes, we’ve won her over and now she’ll trust us for the rest of the day!” was the tune of my internal monologue. I was about to be proven wrong.
I made a poor decision by starting off the shoot using a 16mm lens, a focal length so wide that in order to fill the frame with Daisy’s gorgeous spotted face, I needed to be very close to her to make a compelling image. When I say close—let’s say maybe 8 or 10 inches from her face with my lens. While Daisy was certainly tolerating me and my very in your face, rude human behavior, it is clear to see how exceptionally uncomfortable she is in this photo.
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When you look at this photo, do you marvel at the technical accomplishment and nice, balanced exposure? Do you notice how sharp it is? How nice the white balance looks? How about counting the number of pixels in the image? Of course not. None of that matters.
What you see is an unhappy and uncomfortable dog. That’s it. Move on, nothing else matters.
That day with Daisy reminded me that every single dog is an individual with a unique