Taking the dogs to be shot

I have been trying to think of a way to write about this adventure without making it seem like we are the kind of people who have portraits made of their dogs. Unfortunately, we are that kind of people, and there’s no way to sugarcoat it.

That’s how we ended up in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago (a mere 4-hour drive EACH WAY) at a little studio in the Mission District. We had booked the photo shoot about nine months ago, and I may have secretly thought we would not actually follow through. But we did.

Shooting the shooter

Please don't embarrass us.

Bonnie was blase.

Barkley was the explorer.

All the dogs were groomed and primped the day before, and then on The Day, we were up early for the long drive. There was jockeying for position in the back seat the whole way, and of course somebody barfed, even though I had beseeched them to save that for the trip home. Once we got to the shoot, though, they were pros, posing for almost 250 photos in 90 minutes.

The photographer was the oh so fabulous Amanda Jones, who speaks fluent Dog, meows like a cat, and mostly seems to simply charm her subjects into looking their best. When NPR paid a visit to one of her shoots, Amy Costello said her photographs are works of art: “Think Annie Leibovitz, only with dogs.”

Bonnie acted like a grown-up, of course, but even Brooklyn and Barkley were good as gold. There was no inappropriate peeing, pooping, barfing or bloodshed in the studio.

Which is more than you can say for the girls on America’s Next Top Model.