Unless I have been shooting outdoors, I have had a difficult time doing this. Shooting indoors, without additional light, is a nightmare. The trick, I think is that direct flash crushes pretty much everything you want in creating an image.

Generally, my goal is one of a few things:
1. mimicking the sun for a certain warm look
2. elimination of shadows
3. emphasizing certain features

Doing this without a studio setup is difficult - particularly when shooting dogs as DOF is such a huge issue.

I think to answer your question though,it might be helpful to see samples of the problem. Suggestions of what could have been done would be next. Thoughts?

James