Loueen,
I charge between $50 and $100 per portrait session plus product: prints, calendar, CD, etc. And my product prices produce a reasonable margin for me. On the other hand, I give away my services to a lot to folks who own puppies we've bred or people who foster Rescues for us. So, there's the business side of pet portraits and the "amateur" side as well.

Most of my formal, studio shoots last a little over an hour and my goal is to get 4 or 5 images that truly reflect the personality of the dog or cat I'm shooting. It does take some time for the pet to get comfortable with me and with the studio including strobes so that's included. I usually take over a hundred frames to get those key images and I've found that showing people too many images makes the decision much harder so I cull the choices down to only the really good ones. If they like all 4 or 5, we can offer them a collage which is usually what we end up selling.

While I prefer to shoot dogs -- and especially cats -- in their own environment, and I can bring my studio setup (strobes, backdrops, etc.) there, the mindset of bringing them to the studio actually works better in terms of getting paid and getting them in and out in a reasonable amount of time. For some reason, folks I shoot seem to think if I come to them, they can take as long as they want and I'm coming as a friend rather than a photographer. Going to the studio brings it into the business realm pretty quickly.

I think you have excellent photographic skills and if you want to start charging for your work, I'd suggest you put together a portfolio of your work that you can show folks and a formal, printed price sheet showing folks exactly what they get for their money. I find that the major difference between "amateurs" and "professionals" is the ability to clearly articulate what you will do and what you will charge for what you do. As professionals, we have to ask for the money when we're working. But I'm not always working when I have a camera in my hands .

Good luck,

Jim