Woman manages to pose all 17 of her pets at once

Tuesday 14 January 2020, 15:15 by Michelle Peeters | 6,407 views | 4 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

A woman has achieved the ultimate feat. She managed to get all 17 of her pets to pose neatly, all at the same time.

Kathy Smith is the proud owner of eight dogs and nine cats, which she somehow managed to arrange into an incredible 'family portrait'.

Mind you, this achievement was no easy feat. Kathy spent two weeks working on the perfect photo. Working with animals is a huge challenge for a photographer, and one that is often avoided too...

It turned out that the dogs could handle the challenge perfectly well and sat calmly in front of the camera. The real challenge was getting the cats involved. Cats do what they want, they cannot be directed, as the familiar saying goes...

Countless test shots show the eight well-trained pets, with Kathy bribing Ruby, Ben, Max, Sheba, Teddy, Rio, Storm and Misha to 'sit' with a handful of treats. Kathy then kept darting back and forth with her camera in standby mode, repeatedly dragging the cats back into position.

Eventually, she got them all into position and captured them in a fraction of a second. Just before they scattered again to get back to their daily routines.

Kathy, from Corwen, Wales, said: "I was so happy when I realised I had taken this photo. It is like a little family picture. I love all my pets so much, so I was really happy when I managed to get them all to pose together, although it was not easy to do.

I kept trying to get photos of the cats and dogs all together, but some were always out of shot. The dogs will all sit for treats, so that was easy enough, but the cats were something else.

I now know the real meaning of herding cats. I just had to keep picking them up and putting them back until they stayed put. It took about three attempts, but eventually I managed to keep them there for a few seconds and get the photo before they wandered off again. We live in a rather chaotic house, but you get used to it.

Kathy rescues and cares for pets and other animals in need. She has three German shepherds (Mishka, Storm and Max), three border collies (Sheba, Ben and Rio), a mongrel called Ruby and a Yorkshire Terrier Maltese cross called Teddy. Along with the nine cats, she also has four budgies, several fish and even a baby hedgehog.

Kathy added: People are usually shocked when they visit and realise how many pets we have. The house is crazy, but we are used to it. They all run around and you do not realise there are so many until they are all in one room.

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