How to Include Pets in Family Photos: Tips + Pose Ideas

Many people have special connections with their pets and see them as full-fledged members of the family.

So, when it comes time for a family photoshoot, they often want to include their dog, cat, or other furry friend in the frame.

Unfortunately, many photographers – especially beginners – don’t fully know how to include pets in family photos. Because even the friendliest and best-trained animals can still be a little unpredictable at times, and they won’t always be willing to listen to or follow a photographer’s instructions.

That can make it a difficult challenge to include pets in family photos and get the results you and your clients are looking for. Indeed, many photographers fret about all the extra work and time involved when bringing pets into their shoots.

I used to be the same way, but over time, I’ve learned an array of helpful poses and pet photography tricks that can make the whole process much easier, helping you get the fantastic family photos with pets you want without needless hassle.

I’ll share all my top tips in this guide.

The Challenges of Including Pets in Family Photos

Before I cover specific poses for family photos with pets, it’s important to briefly touch on why pets can sometimes be a challenge to work with.

Ultimately, it boils down to one thing, and one thing only: control.

Human subjects (with the exception of babies and children, perhaps) understand the photoshoot process and are almost always willing to put their faith in the photographer, trusting them to pick the right poses and provide the right instructions.

As such, they’ll generally do whatever you say, striking poses, holding still, turning a little to the left or right, etc.

Animals, however, will not always be quite so eager to follow your instructions. They’re animals, after all, and will sometimes simply follow their own instincts, looking around if they get bored or distracted and refusing to sit still if they’re hungry, tired, or simply become overstimulated.

For this reason, the two keys I’ve found for including pets in family photoshoots are timing and movement.

You have to be active on your feet for these kinds of photoshoots, willing to move about quickly and agilely to find the ideal angle.

You also have to have good reactions, ready to hit that shutter button as and when the perfect moment arrives, since pets won’t necessarily hold the same pose for very long.

(You might also like to check out this guide to photographing difficult, shy or anxious pets for more guidance.)

Keeping that in mind, let’s move on and look at some of my favorite family photo poses to use with pets.

5 Best Family Photo Poses With Pet Poses

To keep things simple for this guide, I’ve chosen five beginner-friendly poses you can try in future photoshoots when animals are involved.

1. The Cuddle

I’ll start with one of the simplest and most adorable poses of all, especially for those with pets that are on the smaller side, or pets that might be a little active and unwilling to sit still for too long: the cuddle.

Here, one of your subjects can lift the pet up as the others gather around in a loving embrace, looking down at the pet and conveying all their love and connection in their expressions.

The key to making this pose work is framing. Personally, I like to make sure the pet is at the very center of the frame, representing their status as the de facto “heart” of the family unit, with other members of the family positioned evenly around them.

Given that this pose involves holding a pet up, it obviously works best with animals that are smaller and lighter. However, you can try it with bigger and heavier dogs, as long as someone is willing to lift them, and it can produce some quirky and amusing results.

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2. The Living Room Pose

Here’s another very simple pose that works well with dogs and cats of different types and sizes, and often produces charming pictures that people are happy to hang above their mantelpiece.

It’s the classic “living room” scene: the family sitting side-by-side on the couch, with a furry friend curled up by their feet on the rug.

There’s no physicality involved in this pose, which allows everyone to feel more relaxed and focused on their position and expression, while also giving you more time to fine-tune your angles and lighting to capture the perfect shot.

Again, arguably the main thing to think about here is framing; you have to position your lens in such a way as to capture the whole family in the frame, but it shouldn’t be too difficult.

As a bonus tip, I sometimes like to move my camera slightly off to one side, rather than placing it directly in front of the family, which can help create a more relaxed and less formal aesthetic.

3. Crouching Down Together

For me, the golden rule of including pets in family photos is adapting to the animal. And sometimes, adapting to the animal means getting down to their level – quite literally.

That’s where this pose comes in. Here, you have all the members of the family crouch, sit, or kneel beside their pet, though the youngest members of the family (like toddlers) may be able to remain standing.

With everyone’s heads more or less lined up together, all that’s left to do is encourage them all to look into the lens to create a fabulous family photo. While it can be a little tricky to get pets to look at the camera, I find that treats and toys tend to help a lot (more on that later).

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4. Facing One Another

When working with pets, so many photographers focus on trying to get the animal to look into the lens, which is one of the reasons these kinds of shoots can prove to be tiring and difficult.

Pets don’t always want to look into the lens, but that’s fine – you don’t have to make them. In fact, some of the best family portrait poses actually involve no one looking into the lens, but instead focusing on one another, just like this pose here.

For this one, have your pets and people sitting on the floor together, with the pet on one side and the family on the other. Have the family talk to the pet, play with it, or even ask it to do tricks, while you move around to capture their interaction.

I always include this pose in my photoshoots because it tends to produce some of the most natural, authentic images of them all. Just remember to keep moving around and use a high burst rate to capture multiple shots, as you never know when that perfect moment will appear.

5. High and Low

A lot of family pet photo poses tend to involve either lifting the animal up to be on the same level as the people or asking the family to crouch down to be in line with the pet. But you don’t necessarily have to opt for one or the other.

You can mix and match, playing around with high and low perspectives with a pose like this, which positions the pet and some of the people down low (on the floor, for instance), while keeping others up high (on a chair, sofa, or something else elevated).

You can even have multiple pets positioned in different places, lowering your camera down to the ground to capture the whole scene from a low angle. The result – if you get it right – is often a very impressive picture that conveys the unity and togetherness of the entire family.

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Professional Tips for Family and Pet Photoshoots

The poses above should help you make a strong start in including pets in family photos more easily.

However, you may still encounter difficulties getting the pet(s) to pose in the right place, stay still long enough for you to photograph them, or to capture the images you have in mind.

My expert tips below should make that at least a little easier.

Don’t Force the Issue, Follow the Animal’s Mood

Photographing animals is very different from photographing people. They won’t simply sit still, turn their head slightly to the left on command, or do exactly as they’re told for an extended period of time.

Their moods and behaviors will vary, and even the best-trained animals will have periods when they want to wander away, sit down, go to sleep, or do anything but what you want them to do.

The trick here is patience. It’s important to respect the animals’ needs and adjust around them, rather than trying to force them into poses and positions they aren’t comfortable with or ready for.

Consider Implementing Props in Your Pictures

Adding props into almost any kind of photoshoot is one of my favorite ways to make the final images feel livelier and more dynamic, and it can work particularly well with photos involving pets.

Why? Because animals will often be more likely to stay in the same place, exactly where you need them, if they have a familiar item around.

You could introduce a dog or cat bed, for example, for the pet to rest in, or introduce some toys, snacks, and other items to keep the pet occupied while you take your shots.

This post has some more fun prop ideas for pets.

Don’t Be a Perfectionist

Here’s something that many photographers inevitably learn when working with animals: you’re probably not going to get that perfect picture you have in mind, where everything lines up just right.

Like I’ve said throughout this guide, pets can be unpredictable. They might strike the right pose one second, then move their head to look at something that caught their eye a second later.

As a result, you have to be willing to accept slightly flawed pictures. Don’t pressure yourself to get everything absolutely correct, as sometimes the best shots are the ones that are a little less-than-perfect.

Capture Lots of Shots in a Short Amount of Time

When I’m working with animals – and young children, too – I like to use a camera with a high burst rate, which lets me capture an array of shots in a short amount of time.

Quite simply, this is because animals will often move around in unpredictable ways, and sometimes, you only have a fraction of a second to capture a great image.

Using a rapid rate camera can help you preserve those special moments, while a slower camera might make you miss them.

Use Treats, Toys, and Distractions to Your Benefit

Animals might not always be willing to follow your instructions, but they’ll be much more likely to strike the poses you want with a little incentive in the form of a treat, for example.

Treats, snacks, toys, whistles, and other engaging elements can all be useful for photographers when working with cats and dogs.

Make sure you have a good stock of these items ready to go before the shoot begins, and use them liberally to encourage the animal into position.

Make the Person Do the Work, Not the Pet

This is one of the most important tips I always give to beginners who are about to do a photoshoot involving an animal of any kind, and it really can make all the difference.

Don’t make the animal do too much work. It’s as simple as that: work around the animal, instead. Adapt to its needs and behaviors, and encourage your human subjects to do the same, moving their bodies and repositioning themselves accordingly around the animal.

In other words, if you want to get natural and beautiful photos of families and their pets, it can actually be very beneficial to let the pet take the lead.

Final Thoughts

With these poses and tips, taking fantastic photos of families and their furry companions should become much easier than it might first appear.

You’ll still need patience, and things won’t always go exactly as intended, but that’s part of the fun of these kinds of shoots. If you’re willing to put in the effort (as well as using treats and toys quite generously), you’ll be rewarded with some standout photos for your portfolio.