Thank you Evita. I light the dogs with two Alien Bee 400s about 10 feet away with the primary light bounced off an Alien Bee PLM and the fill off a silver umbrella. I dial down the fill to about 3/4. I find that lighting wraps the light around the black dogs and lets you pull them off of the background fairly easily. In film days, nobody ever did this in color. In the darkroom, you could dodge the dogs and burn the background in B&W but for color, you'd almost always lose the dog. With digital, you can create layers with the dogs on a layer that you can enhance and the background on a layer you can take to total black. Glad you like the results.

Jim