Tony,
Oh, sure, and I suppose you're going to tell us you didn't use a squeeky for those shots . Great images that show the "personality" of the subjects. As Julie says, it doesn't matter whether it's a dog in the studio or a Grizzly in the wild, you have to capture an image that speaks to people otherwise it's not a portrait. A picture, yes. But not a portrait. Each of those images tells me about the species and about the individual animal in the image. They are portraits.

I think we sometimes get caught up in what's "correct" in an absolute sense instead of just going with the flow and getting expression, interaction and personality that represents that animal in that situation at that moment in time. I take lots of candids of dogs either at shows or in the dog park or just hanging around. Some are decent images but most are NOT portraits. In my portraits, I try to look into the eyes of the subject and see what's in their soul. Kinda like this shot of Rowdy and his girlfriend Melanie.



There is no question that Rowdy loved that young woman.

Or these taken at Disney's Animal Kingdom and used to create a birthday card.




Jim