An ice cream cone can be one of your dog's greatest pleasures. Or an object of derision. Dogs who love people's ice cream may loathe dog ice cream; some know not of the strange substance but are willing to take a sniff. It's a gamble on what looks you'll get but I'm here for it all.

(People outside the U.S. are saying, "What are you talking about, dog ice cream? Like Ice Cream for Dogs? What?")

These socials that started on my carport as an experiment led to a book, "Dogs Vs. Ice Cream," published by Familius Publishing in 2019. After the book was published, I started doing socials for charitable causes including the dog, kitten, and duck rescues. I literally wrote the book on dogs and their cones.

I’ve been photographing dogs and cats since 2013 after searching for a genre I enjoyed photographing after I was laid off. I didn’t want to shoot food or babies or weddings but I loved animals so I began photographing my neighborhood dogs and cats. 

There was a video I watched with a dog named Cooper just devouring an ice cream cone and I thought it was super cute and it made me want to see more dogs eating ice cream. There wasn’t anything professional, just people giving their dogs a cone or cup of whipped cream from the coffee shop. That was 10 years ago and I thought it would be hilarious for dogs to eat ice cream cones so I invited some neighbors with their dogs over to try it, right in my driveway. It was very funny and I just learned so much and everyone had such a good time. Once I started throwing them at pet stores and events, they really did become an ice cream social for dogs and people. By the way, it’s doggy ice cream. Some dogs love it, some dogs loathe it. And it led to a book published by Familius in 2019, “Dogs vs. Ice Cream.”

For the most part, dogs and kittens are the easiest for me to photograph, then cats, then puppies. There comes a certain point when everything literally just clicks. The owner, the pet, and I work together to capture something special. My lighting and my post-processing give the photos a bit of a 3D and painterly effect.

I am really looking for humanlike expressions in dogs. Even in the ice cream photos, you see a range of expressions that seem rather human. Big chompers, delicate lickers, faces offended you would offer something so unworthy. You really see something we recognize in ourselves. 

I have loved photography since I knew what a camera was. Though I was actually a journalist for most of my career. With a camera. And pets… I mean, for animal lovers, they are our everything. Putting these two things together just really makes me happy and I think my work is not only about making other people happy but seeing something special and dignified and soulful in canine and feline faces.

For people who have an interest in pet photography, just start taking images. Study other pet photographers to start seeing what you like and follow that. Don’t copy it, learn the techniques. Study. Practice. It won’t feel like work because you enjoy it. It takes time to learn but it takes time to do anything well. And one day, it all starts clicking together.