DAY 49: 7 Week Photo Shoot

You’ll recall that we started training the puppies to stand back at Day 26 in anticipation of their important 8-week stacked-photoshoot. The angles of the joints and the length of long bones in relation to each other on Days 55-57 are exactly the same as when they will be when the puppies are at 2 years of age. This window is pivotal as the puppies will also go through wonky growth spurts in the time in between these two dates — so you will see them being all legs, bum high, weird toplines which is not an accurate reflection of the adult dog. These references are very important to breeders in evaluation the futures of their puppies — who might be selected for breeding programs or who might be best suited to be a very active agility competitor or hiking companion. The better the structure, the more stamina & longevity they will have for their life’s work (hiking, dog sports, ranch work) and the more gracefully they will age.

Uncooperative puppies lead to photo results we cannot rely on for these decisions so it pays to practice. For example, you can see Tony is reaching too far forward which is making him appear to be really long in his neck when is actually not that way. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of our official pictures next week!