The Four Seasons Every Dog Should Be Professionally Photographed
People ask me all the time: when is the right time to schedule a session for my dog?
My answer is always some version of the same thing: there are four seasons in a dog's life, and each one has photographs that can only be made during that window. Miss the window, and it's gone.
Here's how I think about them.
Season One: Coming Home
The puppy. The rescue dog in their months. The foster who became permanent. The dog who just moved into a new chapter of your life together.
This season is fleeting in a way that nothing else quite is. The proportions are wrong — enormous paws, oversized ears, a body still figuring out where it ends. The uncertainty is written all over them. And underneath it: the beginning of everything.
People often put off puppy sessions thinking their dog will be more cooperative when they're older and better trained.
And that's true. They will be.
But the puppy won't exist anymore.
The coming home season is roughly birth through eight months — shorter depending on how fast your breed matures. If your dog is in this season right now, don't wait.
Season Two: The Young Adult
Roughly one to three years old.
This is the season where your dog becomes who they actually are. The personality that was only hinted at in the puppy phase arrives fully. The goofball is a full goofball. The serious one is unmistakably serious. The velcro dog has made their decision and it is final.
Young adult dogs are also, very often, gorgeous in a way they weren't quite ready to be as puppies and a way they'll carry differently as they age into their senior years. If you've been waiting for your dog to "look right" — this is often the season that surprises you.
Season Three: The Prime Years
Roughly three to six years old — the widest window of the four.
These are the best days. Your dog is healthy, settled, confident, and completely themselves. They know the routines. They know you. The chaos of puppyhood is long gone and the physical changes of old age haven't arrived yet.
It's easy to let this season pass without photographing it because everything feels stable. There's always next year. The dog is fine. There's no urgency.
But the prime years have a specific energy — a rightness, a fullness — that doesn't last forever. And when you're on the other side of them, you'll wish you had something that shows your dog exactly as they were during this chapter.
Season Four: The Senior Years
Eight and older, though some breeds arrive here earlier.
This is the most important session to schedule — and the one most people put off until it's almost too late.
Senior dogs move more slowly. They have gray around their muzzles. They sleep more and do less and every moment feels like a gift of time.
These photographs are not sad. They are some of the most beautiful I make.
A senior dog has earned the face they're wearing. There is history in those eyes — ten or twelve or fifteen years of mornings and walks and naps on the couch and being loved by you. That is worth photographing with intention, with time, with care.
Don't wait until you're worried. Schedule the senior session while your dog is still having their good days.
Most dogs move through all four seasons in ten to fifteen years. Some faster, some slower. Most people photograph their dogs during one season at most.
If you've never done a professional session — or if it's been more than a few years — the right time is probably now.
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