When a love for big dogs and a love of running combined, the obvious breed of choice for Karla was a Cane Corso. Closely related to the Neapolitan Mastiff, the Cane Corso is well muscled and athletic, but not as bulky as some of the other mastiff breeds. While they mostly come in black or fawn, there are other colour variations too – Jett here is “Grigio Tigrato” or blue brindle. I just adore this colour!

So back to Jett’s story… although he was selected as a potential running partner, 18 month old Jett unfortunately hasn’t been very active at all during his short life. With a host of health dramas including shoulder surgery, luxating patellas and hip dysplasia from 12 weeks old, he’s spent a great deal of time on rest in his crate.

He was a bit of a grumpy puppy which is not truly representative of his temperament, instead it was due to all his medical problems and associated pain.

After a long 18 months he has now been given the all clear to start exercising and playing with pain now very minimal. Yay for Jett!

Being such a super cruisy chilled guy, it was a bit of a challenge to get Jett’s ears up – the secret weapon ended up being thrown pinecones – lucky there were lots of them on hand in this beautiful forest.

Karla says, “He’s a super energetic big baby now with a very sweet nature and each day with him is better than the last.”

On to Jett’s little (but older) bro Kilo. I learned an important lesson at my shoot. You’ll never win a staring competition with a Dachshund, especially one with this much attitude! Four year old Kilo may be small, but like most Dachsies he’s rather full of himself and as his mum says “does what he wants, when he wants.”

I also have it on good authority he’s a pretty good snuggler too, so I guess it all balances out!

Karla chose a Dachshund for practical purposes as she was renting at the time – it’s always easier to relocate with a little dog. Kilo’s actually a great compromise, described as a “big dog in a little dogs body”, he’s a great watchdog too!

I had to laugh when he was described in his questionnaire as a “jerk” – we had a couple of Dachsies when I was a kid and I can totally relate to that!

Dachshunds on the run are absolutely hilarious. I laughed so much when editing Kilo’s photos! The phrase “faster than a speeding bullet” comes to mind.

When working with pets, it’s a given that things don’t always go according to plan. Though we ended up with a great collection of images of Kilo and Jett individually at our initial shoot, it proved tricky to get both dogs posing happily next to each other, in an unfamiliar environment, with them both on lead, with just Karla and myself!

I know Karla was really excited about getting some shots of them together, so I offered her a mini re-shoot and brought along my new assistant Jules to lend her extensive “dog wrangling” skills to help get the shots we were after.

This time around, the extra pair of hands made all the difference!

We were also blessed with some absolutely amazing afternoon light when we found a new track in the pine forest that led directly towards the sunset. The golden glow was out of this world!

This shot is a good lesson in always being ready – Jett’s not the most energetic of dogs so encouraging him to run had previously just resulted in a slow lope. In this case, he’d been exploring a little way down the track and when recalled back, he was touched by the crazy and ended up zooming back up towards us! It’s lucky I have my camera set up for action at all times, as there was no time to change settings. This would have to be one of my all time favourite shots!

Just for fun, here are some of the album spreads from Karla’s beautiful 12×12″ Storybook Album. I love how it’s possible to truly tell stories and capture the personalities of the dogs in the way the images are combined and placed with each other.