I love when I’m photographing a dog and he smiles. Some dogs do it naturally. Others do not.

I get it… some dogs don’t know what to make of my big black camera pointed at them. My own dogs don’t smile very often. Molly rarely does. Moose will if I have treats. Their typical go-to pose is what is referred to as #rbf. Google it if you’re not sure what that means. LOL

For dogs that don’t naturally smile, I do several things. The first is to take my time. I’m really patient and I let the dog take his time to get more comfortable.

The second thing I do is ask the dog mom or dog dad “what makes him happy?” Sometimes the answer is cuddling, sometimes the answer is chasing a ball. We will take some time and do what makes him happy.

Most of the time, he just needs to understand that he’s safe.

Some dogs though have modeling in their genes.

I thought I’d share some of my favorite dog smiles. I’ve selected 2020 and 2019 photos only for this. There were a lot of photos I could’ve selected.

Thank you to all these smiling dogs!

I’ve said to my husband, “can the next dog we adopt be one that smiles?” I said that about Molly though and you see how that’s worked out. This is her go to pose - looking a bit worried. We love her anyway!