Having your pet in the engagement photos?

We brought one of our best friends who knows our dog very well and she brought Reagan in a different car and we snapped a few quick pictures at the beginning with our friend holding a tennis ball right behind the camera. Then she took our dog home and we did the rest with just the two of us! So glad we did it that way! We live in AZ so you can't leave dogs in cars here since it's so hot all the time

We did and it was more hassle than it was worth. There were people around so our pup didn't listen and wanted to go see everyone. I was very frustrated and I think it came across in the pictures so they aren't my favorite, I think we only got 1 nice picture with the 3 of us. I did have a friend come halfway through to pick her up and it was so much smoother after that. I wish I had my friend come at the beginning with a toy or treats to keep our pup focused on the camera rather than FH and myself and everyone else though.

Nothing to add, but all these pics are adorable! We have two cats who would never put up with pics!

We did, but our pup was 7 mos old at the time and sooo distracted because we were in a park. My brother came to take care of her while we took the other photos. At one point she went for a squirrel and I had to hold onto her while she tried to wriggle away lol

@erica What kind of dog is that? He/she is strikingly gorgeous!

We included our pup in just a few right at the beginning of our session. we had a close friend come grab her and take her home after 15 min or so of pics...then we finished the session with just us. She is super high anxiety-so involving her in much else wasn't an option, but those pics of all 3 of us are my favorite!

@Chelsea, I love your pittie!!!!!

I wanted to include our boys but they weren't allowed in Fenway!

We decided to bring our pup with us. We had him with us for about the last 15 minutes of the session. He is an explorer so we had to keep him leashed and he was not willing to be completely still so we only got a few but it was so worth it! He is our baby and the photos with him came out great!

@OP your pup is adorable! Love seeing everyone's pups with them!

I LOVE these! All of your dogs are so cute! DeclaredABear- that pic is classic! We didn't have a formal engagement shoot, but FB surprised me with a flash mob proposal. That would have been a little too much stimulation for our crazy pup!

Love our fur baby so much. Of course he had to be in them.

We thought about including our dog, but decided against it. We didn't want to have someone else with us during the shoot to handle the dog. We were also worried that most of the energy for the shoot would go into getting the dog to focus rather than helping us learn how to relax and pose in front of the camera.

Bear is a lab.. so he thinks everyone and everything is his friend. We did our pictures with him in the beginning. We had my friend and her boyfriend there to take him home after.

Our photographer was awesome and got a few good shots. It wasn't easy but, it was important for us to have him in these photos.

We had our dog in ours, but since he was still pretty young at the time (1.5 yrs) we had a friend come and wrangle him for a bit. This was perfect because we were able to get a ton of photos together but we were still able to get shots of just us (the humans).

Definitely talk with your photographer beforehand, though--some people just aren't dog people or don't photograph pets often (believe it or not, it's a special kind of skill that does take some practice!). Our photog is a total dog-lover so this was a non-issue with us.

As for logistics, we brought our dog's e-collar (we were in a heavily wooded area in the fall and had multiple deer running around, driving our dog insane) a regular collar (with all current tags), his leash, a favorite squeaky toy and treats to help get and hold his attention for the camera. Also, double-check wherever you plan on getting your pictures taken--we didn't realize the area we were in was actually a nature preserve, but the ranger on-duty was celebrating his 35th wedding anniversary that day and let us slide (also, the puppy tummy rubs may have swayed him, haha!!). Good luck!

(sidebar, our engagement photos are too large to post here, so instead I'll just post my fav puppy pic instead!)

I think that is an awesome idea!! Pets are like kids so why not?

We included our dogs- we did ask our photographer first, but she is on team #alwaysbringthedogs, so that was cool. We had FBIL come with us for the beginning of the shoot and then he took the dogs home when they were done. They are some of our favorite pictures- even the ones where they weren't quite cooperating.

Thanks everyone for all the ideas we have a month till our photos so we will be going back and forth on it till then. I'd love to do it but FH is on the fence

Yes and they turned out wonderful

@SDC he is an Australian Shepherd. He'a definitely very photogenic even though he did roll around in the puddles before pictures you can tell! Lol

YES DO IT. These were ours loved it. furry best friend