Diane,
it's more about your standards than those of the people you shoot for. But sometimes you just have to make do. As Jim Poor says, you can use flash off-camera, move your pups away from the background and a lot of other things but shooting puppies is best in either a totally controlled environment -- like your own studio -- or outdoors where you don't have to deal with lighting issues. How old are these pups? We do the first set of shots at 5 weeks of age and the second round just before they leave at 8 weeks. So, once the pups are weaned, they have been vaccinated and they go outside. Ironically, they probably have better immunity from their mom at 3 to 4 weeks but we don't take chances since Rotties have very weak immunity to Parvo.