Julie,
that's another advantage of working with show animals -- they generally know how to pose for photos and how to react to toys, food, the word "cookie" etc.

James is right in saying it's the owner's job to pose/bait the animal, however, baiting is difficult and most owners -- even of show animals -- have no clue how to do it. When possible, I ask other handlers to help me bait the dogs I shoot. They are experts at getting a dog to focus on whatever they have in their hands.

As an exhibitor of dogs as well as a photographer of dogs, I train all my show dogs to pose for photographs. I start at the same time I train them to show since I assume they will win and will therefore have to get on a podium and look good for a photograph. My Rottie boy, Rowdy (A/C CH Loral's Der Terminator CGC, TT, HIC, RTD) has been trained to pose without a handler and to bait for food or bisquits that I toss without moving until he's told to. So I use him as my demo dog when I'm shooting Specialties. I set him up on the podium, go back to the camera position, toss food and take my test shots. You should see the look on the exhibitors faces when they see a 120 lb Rottie posed without a handler and not moving a foot until he's told to. Really works great when the Specialty is Papillons or MinPins : )

One additional comment: you need to learn how to use a squeeker and how to toss toys/bait to get expression and head position. And you thought it was all about taking pictures!!!

Jim