The single most frequent request I get as a photographer at dog shows is "can you get a great moving shot of my dog?" And the answer is: maybe. Great moving shots are often difficult to define but we all know one when we see it. Everything is in perfect harmony; perfect balance. The dog looks as if it is gliding along effortlessly. To me, the "perfect" moving shot has the front on one side fully extended and the rear on the other side fully extended with the opposite legs fully contracted under the dog's middle. Something like this.



In that shot of Rowdy at 10 years of age, he's fully balanced although probably not as athletic as he was as a kid. Still, this is what I consider to be an excellent moving shot of a dog that could move excellently.

So, what are the components of a "great" moving shot?

1. First and foremost, the dog has to move well. That seems to be obvious but not all dogs move in perfect harmony. Some move very athletically but their fronts are never quite in synch with their rears.

2. You have to be in exactly the right place to catch it -- usually that means directly across from the dogs to get them in profile. At the ARC National, I was asked to shoot the Top 20 dogs in the ring to try to capture some action shots. While I wasn't able to get directly across from them because of how the room was set up, I was able to capture a few good moving shots.

Here's Ch Pfeffer-Schloss On The Town, UDX, RE, BH, TT, TDI, WETT (Turbo).



And here's Ch Loral's Number One Caesar (Caesar) the winner of the Top 20 Competition.



3. You have to be able to capture the moment when they are fully in synch. To increase my chances, I shoot bursts and track the dogs as they move across the ring in front of me. Sometimes you get it; sometimes you don't. Here's Ch Acosta's Mobsters Bandido Bueno.



4. You have to get lucky. For everything to come together at a moment in time and have the shutter go off at that exact moment isn't pure skill. It takes more than a modicum of luck. Now, the harder I work and the more I plan, the luckier I get but that doesn't change the fact that you have to be lucky to get that really good moving shot. We have a Weimaraner for an advertising client and we ran her and her owner around our cul-de-sac for almost an hour to get this moving shot.



And, while she's crossing over in the middle, it shows how athletic she is.

On the other hand, Standard Poodles aren't supposed to move like Sporting dogs.





Nor are Whippets.



The bottom line is that you can do everything right but if the dog doesn't have superb movement, you'll never get a shot of him moving superbly. Great movement is something I value very highly as a breeder. To me, it demonstrates what the dog was originally bred to do. Rottweilers, for example, were bred to drive the herd -- cattle or sheep -- to market. They were supposed to be able to trot all day. When I would walk Rowdy for 3 to 5 miles every day -- with him trotting the entire way -- I realized that he could have done that all day. His son, Max, has similar movement.



As does his great granddaughter, Moxie, here training for her first show in a few weeks.



So when folks ask me if I can get a great moving shot of their dog, I tell them I'll try. And, more times than not, I do get lucky .

Jim

Very nice, Jim. Thanks for the education. It is a study in gait. Does the dog get judged on gait?

Yes, very much. That Bandido Beuno dog can MOVE. Look at that reach and drive. Dottie has adaquete side gait, and it is very correct coming and going. It isn't a huge sweeping side gait though. Form and function usually go hand in hand. If they are correct standing, they should be good moving, and vice versa, but, its not always the case.

But yes, they are judged heavily on movement too, of course according to how the breed is supposed to move

Julie,
Bandido was Rowdy's buddy and he passed away too early a few years ago. But when he was young, he was one of the best moving dogs I'd ever seen. He and Rowdy gave children cart rides at the Meet The Breeds event that was part of the 2005 AKC/Eukanuba Invitational in Tampa, Florida. Here's a picture of them just prior to us being awarded a Best In Show for the booth. That's Rowdy on the left and Bandido on the right.



Bandido stayed with us frequently and my favorite memory is he and Rowdy laying in the hallway outside of the studio with their butts touching. Two intact male Rottweilers that truly loved each other.

Preston, in the Conformation ring, judges look at how the dogs move to validate what they see stucturally when the dogs are standing stacked. A dog can be hand-stacked into an almost perfect position but when they move, you can't hide things like a straight front, too much rear angulation, poor shoulder layback, a rear that is cow-hocked, etc. When the dog moves, it shows you how sound it is physically. The shot of Dot, Julie's Whippet, is misleading because trotting is something they are asked to do in the show ring. Whippets are not trotters. They RUN!! Very fast. And they do so by using their backs as if they were hinged and galloping. They run like Cheetahs. They are built for short bursts of blinding speed. While Rottweilers can run, they don't cover ground like Whippets do. But they trot nice and they trot effortlessly and they should be able to trot all day long.

As Julie says, judges need to know how different breeds should move. But regardless of the breed, the ones that move smoothly -- as someone once described a famous Kenyan Marathoner: "as water flows" -- are generally the ones that are put together the best. When I judge Rotties, I judge on profile -- how the dog looks freestanding from the side -- and movement both down & back (to see how true they move front and rear) and from the side. Yes, I look at heads and yes I care about the cosmetics (color, pigment, coat texture, length of tail, etc.) but what I see from the profile of the dog tells me everything I need to know about type and when I look at the dog's movement, I can see whether or not that dog could do the job for which the breed was created.

Jim

Love these photos! That shot of the weimaraner is especially gorgeous.

Diana

Those of use that shoot cats don't get to see the cats really run, but if we have a long enough platform or table we can sometimes get a walk or stalk.
Diana

Nice, Diana.

One thing to note about all of these is the good leg separation.

Preston,
you asked if the dogs in shows are judged on gait. Here is the section of the Rottweiler Standard that talks about gait:

"The Rottweiler is a trotter. His movement should be balanced, harmonious, sure, powerful and unhindered, with strong forereach and a powerful rear drive. The motion is effortless, efficient, and ground-covering. Front and rear legs are thrown neither in nor out, as the imprint of hind feet should touch that of forefeet. In a trot the forequarters and hindquarters are mutually coordinated while the back remains level, firm and relatively motionless. As speed increases the legs will converge under body towards a center line."

In the photo of Bandido, you can see that his "reach" -- the front leg extension -- goes beyond his nose which is excellent for a 2-year-old Rottie, and his rear "drive" shows his paw pointing toward the sky. Again, excellent for a 2-year-old Rottie. In comparison, Rowdy, at 10 years old, could still reach to the tip of his nose and his rear drive was similar to Bandido at 2 years old. Most dogs lose their flexibility when they get older and keep in mind that at 10, Rowdy was comparable to a 70-year-old person.





It's important to understand, from a breeding perspective, that structurally sound dogs will retain their ability to move well throughout their lives. While they may lose some of their athleticism, they don't lose that ability to move "effortlessly".

It's also important to understand that proper gait for a Rottweiler is not the same as proper gait for a Whippet, for example. Or a Bulldog. As a judge, you may love how Golden Retrievers fly around the ring but you have to understand that a Bulldog moves the way it does because of how it is built and you have to understand what is appropriate for each of those very different breeds.

Jim