Could Your Pet be Models Direct’s Top Dog?
Who’s your favourite pet model? The faithful Lassie? The cheeky terrier Eddie from Frasier? Or the latest, Elle Macpherson’s labradoodle Bella?
People often tend to forget about pet modelling, despite us all thinking our pretty pooch or cute kitty (or maybe something more unusual) are the cutest animals out there. So how do you go about finding modelling work for your pet, and what makes the perfect animal model?
Firstly, you need to find an agency to represent your pet. Models Direct is one of the few commercial modelling agencies that includes pets on their database of models. Pet modelling assignments with Models Direct have included photoshoots and television work for clients including Richard and Judy, Punky Fish Jewellery, an animal fashion show and various magazines and catalogues.
Your pet needs to have a playful but well-behaved temperament to become a model. The animal should be well trained and not be too easily distracted as there is likely to be a lot going on at the assignment. It’s quite likely that the animal will be working with some kind of prop and while some are intended to be chewed others definitely aren’t!
As any pet owner will know, insurance, vet bills and food can get expensive, but by putting your animal forward for modelling in advertising campaigns, on television or even in films, you have the opportunity some extra cash to help foot the bill.
Dogs are big in the fashion industry as well as the dog food/toy/treat market as one journalist for The Independent, Judith Watt, found out. “It was while researching back issues of British Vogue for a special millennial issue in 1999 that I came across something quite unexpected among the fashion photographs in the magazine’s archive: thousands of canines. ’The next best thing to having the world at your feet is to have a dog at your heels,’ Vogue proclaimed in 1930.”
Models Direct’s pet models haven’t yet been seen at those heights of fashion but you never know, you could be seeing your pet in the future editions of Vogue!
