My Dog's Birthday Cake and The Making Of....

stsinner · Jan 12, 2009

As you may have picked up on.. We baby our Mastiff, Mocha..

Well, tomorrow is Mocha's 5th birthday, and since she is such an awesome dog (and we purchased her for $2000), my wife makes her a cake for her birthdays..

Here is this year's cake, along with some of the effort that went into it and the lighting that I had fun using/learning. All the decorations are made out of fondant made from marshmallows..

The cakes consist of:
Main (people) cake: Bottom-Chocolarte, and the top cake is vanilla with eggnog and rum.

Doggie cake: Cocoa powder chocolate cake..

I had just received my optical slave flash, so I used it throughout this shoot..

Made from scratch..

The cake:

And my setup:

Mgw189 · Jan 12, 2009

:scratch: You're giving the dog chocolate?

stsinner · Jan 12, 2009

Mgw189 said:
:scratch: You're giving the dog chocolate?

I specified that the doggie cake uses cocoa powder.. Not real chocolate.. My wife got the recipe from a book of dog-safe recipes...

Awesome critique of the pictures..

ATXshots · Jan 12, 2009

Wow, your wife is talented! She should sell those lol!

As for the photos....I love the 1st one! The big ones are always big babies

.

BTW cocoa powder is one of the WORST forms of chocolate you can give a dog. The darker the chocolate the more theobromine (a cardiac stimulant) which is toxic to dogs. The only thing worse than powder is the actual cocoa bean.

ypperin · Jan 12, 2009

Absolutely love the pics especially the ones of the pooch and the cake.

As well after reading what the last poster stated I figured I would look up info on dogs and pure cocoa powder and it seems that it has the highest level of theobromine :O

Now I know that commercial cocoa powder has less (as noted here ) however there still is risk that should be considered.

Shutterinsect · Jan 12, 2009

Cocoa/chocolate really isn't good for the doggie...perhaps Carob bean is safe?

stsinner · Jan 12, 2009

ATXshots said:
Wow, your wife is talented! She should sell those lol!

As for the photos....I love the 1st one! The big ones are always big babies .

BTW cocoa powder is one of the WORST forms of chocolate you can give a dog. The darker the chocolate the more theobromine (a cardiac stimulant) which is toxic to dogs. The only thing worse than powder is the actual cocoa bean.

Thanks for the heads-up. Since nobody seems to have a damn coherent answer to this question, we will only be allowing her to eat the vanilla portion of the cake..

lids369 · Jan 12, 2009

my dog does fine with lindt truffles and shes a boxer so the same group/family, u should ask your vet or a vet though.

ATXshots · Jan 12, 2009

Here, I found this for you:

The quantity of chocolate that must be eaten before toxic symptoms appear is different for each dog. What could be lethal for one dog, may be no problem for another. The LD50 of theobromine for dogs is around 300mg/kg. (mg/kg = milligrams of theobromine per kilogram of dog. 1 kilogram = 2.2lb). This means that 300mg/kg will kill 50% of the dogs that it is administered to. Therefore, some dogs will die well before this point is reached, and according to the Veterinary Poisons Information Service, 130mg/kg was fatal to a dog.

So, if we take this as a base, and imagine a 20kg dog (about the size of most Border Collies), it may only require 130x20 = 2600mg of theobromine to be a fatal dose.

The quantity of theobromine varies, even within the same broad groups mentioned above, but plain, or dark chocolate can contain as much as 16mg of theobromine per gram of chocolate. So, dividing our 2600mg lethal dose by 16mg leaves us with a figure of 162.5g of dark chocolate as being potentially lethal to a 20kg dog. That's about six ounces. Not a lot is it, if you consider that most "boxes of chocolates" weigh about one pound. Most cases of chocolate poisoning involve dogs that have "stolen" a whole box of chocolates from under a Christmas tree, and deaths in these, often quite large dogs are not in any way uncommon. Cocoa powder is even more dangerous. It can contain as much as 50% more theobromine than plain chocolate, so as little as four ounces could be fatal.

Chocolate Poisoning

Good choice giving her the vanilla! She might like carrot cake too

stsinner · Jan 12, 2009

Notice how there's no critique of the pictures in the Photo Forum... Neato...

Shutterinsect · Jan 12, 2009

Sowwy...love the first pic.

ATXshots · Jan 12, 2009

stsinner said:
Notice how there's no critique of the pictures in the Photo Forum... Neato...

hey....just trying to help out your dog! I guess we all could have kept our mouths shut while your dog has a cardiac arrest.

To be honest, I don't really like the ones with the cake. I mean they are cute for a scrapbook or photo album, but as far as being professional shots (maybe for a cake add or something?) they don't really look the part. . But....I'm no professional

bradsperry · Jan 13, 2009

just can't win in here can you? damned if you do ... damned if you don't ..... lol

anywhoooo .............

i like the first one. it has a play on how we treat our animals better than we treat ourselves and at the same time how animals act like they are humans. (this has nothing to do with what you feed your counterpart ... i have had several dogs, they have all gotten into chocolate and i know what your talking about..... after the comment, i thought i should tell you that so you don't get confused). i'm not going to waste your time reading commments about the setup shots ..... there isn't any need to. i like how you documented the process, showing the detail put into the cake.... it show's how you feel about your counterpart. i'm just trying to figure out how you got the shadow on shot #10????? surely you weren't using a shoe mount flash along with this setup? ....... just curious........ what happened?

bradsperry · Jan 13, 2009

ATXshots said:
hey....just trying to help out your dog! I guess we all could have kept our mouths shut while your dog has a cardiac arrest.

To be honest, I don't really like the ones with the cake. I mean they are cute for a scrapbook or photo album, but as far as being professional shots (maybe for a cake add or something?) they don't really look the part. . But....I'm no professional

they look like practice picks for advertisement to me.

....... but, I'M THINKING HE WAS LOOKING FOR C&C ON THE LIGHTING AND DOCUMENTARY OF THE SUBJECT. anybody in here would go for the less busy background for a book that will see a press.... if it's practice, why waste the time and money when the majority of us don't have it? use your imagination and common sense.

Arch · Jan 13, 2009

stsinner said:
Notice how there's no critique of the pictures in the Photo Forum... Neato...

Dude to be frank, this and all your other comments are just plain rude.

People have spent the time to comment in your thread, be greatful.

If you want a harsh critique so bad, the first has nice lighting and is composed ok. The rest are just snapshots. The shadows are too heavy and the arrangements are too haphazard.

BTW im still trying to find where in your first post you actually ASK for a critique.