My best girl Chloe, muse for my pet photography business, is a teenager. She turned 13 in June and to celebrate her day, we headed to Longmont’s Union Reservoir dog beach with her friends Ollie and Timber. Although Chloe loved the Burgers and Bacon for Dogs and People party that we held for her 12th birthday, she loves swimming just as much as bacon, so we mixed things up a bit this year.

It was a good thing too since Chloe taught Timber, a one-year-old mix featured here and here, how to swim. He’d already been interested in water, but seeing Chloe fetch the stick must have been too alluring, and he finally got all feet off the ground and transformed into a dog version of Michael Phelps.

All images © Susannah Allen 2012

These images were taken with an off-camera flash in high-speed flash sync mode so that I could wide open apertures with short shutter speeds. I like the crispness it gives the photos. I used a wide angle lens (16-35 mm) in most of the shots and got as close to the dogs as possible while protecting my camera gear from splashing pooches.