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Category : Pet Advice

25 Apr 2019

Dog Mom Gift Ideas for Every Budget (Updated 2020)

Written by J.B. Shepard, professional pet photographer, amateur dog mom gift enthusiast, and founder of the Puptrait Studio in Baltimore, Maryland. Dog Lovers Love Dog Themed Gifts! Is the dog mom’s favorite? Of course they are! Which is why our dog blog team has put together a Mother’s Day gift guide just for dog moms. Below you’ll find a wide assortment of gift types, ranging from weird and whimsical to practical and heartfelt. We’ve also made sure to include gifts […]

22 Apr 2019
Maryland and Washington D.C. professional pet photographer. Dog friendly Baltimore, MD based photography studio.

Improve Your Pet Photography Portfolio Instantly | Eliminate Group Shoots

To be clear, we’re not saying that a professional pet photographer can’t capture group portraits of older, larger or more active dogs. In fact, many dog portrait artists will even go so far as to even guarantee that they can. But as quoted by Chris Farley in his titular role of the 90’s comedic classic Tommy Boy, “…if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time.”

13 Apr 2019
Action shot photo of a cute American Bulldog Terrier running along the Baltimore Inner Harbor at the Canton Waterfront Park. This photo was captured by the professional dog photographers at the Puptrait Studio in Hampden and is featured in a tutorial teaching aspiring pet photographers how to photograph running dogs like a pro.

How to Photograph a Running Dog

Written by J.B. Shepard, a professional pet photographer and founder of the Puptrait Studio. Photographing a running dog isn’t a simple task. In fact, taking great pictures of running dogs consistently can be down right difficult — as it requires a photographer to understand dog behaviors, how to use artificial light sources / light modifiers, how their camera functions in extreme conditions, and how to frame less than optimal scenes. But with proper understanding of the hurdles specific to these […]

15 Mar 2019

Do Yappy Hours Need to Be Awful?

Yappy Hours are often promoted as a great advertising tool for up-and-coming pet photographers. Community liaisons and community members clearly seem to be fans – they are everywhere after all. But are they a good deal for pet photographers, dog owners and event hosts? In all honesty, most Yappy Hours are a massive failure. But they don’t have to be. Keep reading if you’d like to learn why these dog friendly events are usually a huge failure, common pitfalls to […]

10 Mar 2019
A Chugg (Chihuahua

Is it Safe to Give Alcohol to Dogs?

Consuming even a small amount of alcohol can be dangerous for a dog. A dog’s kidneys and liver were never intended to filter or process the alcohol content of beer, wine, or any other alcoholic drink. Which shouldn’t be all that surprising, as the ability to metabolize alcohol, much like the ability to metabolize milk fat sugars (lactose), is actually a relatively recent mutation in humans.

09 Mar 2019
A photo of a St. Patrick's Day dog costume. Bully puppy photo of a cute American Pit Bull dog celebrating St. Paddy's Day wearing a green derby / bowler cap and green dog collar in celebration of Ireland.

Dog Lover’s Guide to St. Paddy’s Day 2020

Written by J.B. Shepard, a dog advocate and founder of the Puptrait Studio. Sláinte! It’s March and you know what that means – St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner! St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated annually on March 17th. In 2020 the date falls on a Tuesday. What is St. Patrick’s Day? Saint Patrick’s Day, also colloquially known as St. Paddy’s day or in Irish as Lá Fhéile Pádraig (“the Day of Festival of Patrick”) is named after St. […]

25 Feb 2019
smiling piebald pitbull brindle wearing a Elizabethan style ruff collar

How Much Does Pet Photography Cost?

Dog photography costs vary. Professional pet portrait prices can range anywhere from $500 to $5,000 per dog. Most amateur and student photographers charge much less, often charging as little as $250 to $500 per session.

19 Feb 2019
a portrait of a fawn boxer wearing a paper crown taken with a dslr

31 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Dog Photographer | Updated 2020

Written by J.B. Shepard, professional pet photographer and founder of the Puptrait Studio in Baltimore, Maryland. For most dog lovers, our dogs are our favorite kids. While the rest of your pack might sit for school photos every year or the occasional selfie with friends, our dogs tend to get neglected. Not because we don’t love them, but because taking a decent photo of a dog can be difficult — even for experienced pet photographers. Make sure you’re hiring the right pet […]

15 Feb 2019
ready to hang dog art mounted on dibond

Popular Styles of Dog Portraits

Written by J.B. Shepard, a professional pet photographer and founder of the Puptrait Studio in Baltimore, Maryland. What is the best kind of pet portrait? Ask a dozen dog owners their favorite style of dog portrait and you’re likely to get a dozen different answers back. Pet portraits can be created in a variety of different formats and mediums. Dog portraits can be painted, drawn, photographed – even created as rendered computer graphics (CG). Just as the medium for pet portraits […]

06 Feb 2019
One of the Breath of the Wild's many friendly dogs.

How to Tame Dogs in Breath of the Wild

If you’re anything like me (a huge video game nerd and a professional pet photographer), you were probably pretty excited to discover interactive dogs in the latest Zelda installment, Breath of the Wild (BOTW). This isn’t the first time that dogs appeared in the Zelda franchise, but the level of interactivity and shear whimsicalness of the canine edition to the game is arguably unprecedented. Unlike in a lot of other video games, the dogs in BOTW aren’t forced into the […]