Thanks everyone! These were all awesome tips. Just an update if anyone is wondering, the session was very interesting. It ended up only being four dogs and one kitten and the pets actually didn't turn out to be the difficult part. The difficult part was that they wanted to do the session on a red couch in front of their burgundy curtains in a room with no natural lighting. I explained the colors may clash and that it would be better if we had more natural light but they were set on that area. It was all very casual including their attire which included (but was not limited to) ripped t-shirts, dirty jeans and one neon yellow sweatshirt, which is fine if that is what they are comfortable in, it just added to the challenge of it all which is fine too! We did end up getting a few shots but I ended up only being there for half the time I expected (they weren't enthusiastic about moving around and trying different poses), so I only charged them half of what they were expecting.
@imagemaker46 sorry if you misunderstood me, I never "decided" I couldn't do the shoot. Had that been the case, I would not have come here looking for help, and I would not have agreed to do the shoot if I felt like I wasn't experienced enough or up for the task. I don't think the fact that I've never photographed a family of four and seven pets disqualifies me from being able to run a business, everyone has to start somewhere. Right now I am at the stage where I've just created a website and am starting to get a local following. Maybe we have different ideas of what a "business" means, right now to me it means I've starting getting requests for photo shoots from friends and friends of friends and other people in my area. I'm charging a very very low price for what I have been told and consider myself to be high quality photos because yes, my business is new. I just wanted to make myself clear on all of that but I do appreciate your other suggestions.
I don't think I misunderstood what you said. After reading how your shoot went I am guessing that you did go into a situation without having any lights, "no natural lighting" Was I correct in assuming you used the single pop up flash on your camera? It's not about running a business, I know all kinds of camera owners that are running a business, it's how professional a person is when running that business. Most own a single camera with the kit lenses that came with it, got business cards, set up a facebook page or ventured into a free web site, watched a few videos, and then decided that was enough to start charging.
I consider the images I produce as high quality, it has become a blanket term in the photo world, it means very. What is being called an "excellent image" now, would have been considered "good" a few years ago, "great image" now, used to be "mediocre" and "good image" now, used to be garbage.
What it all comes down to is that your friends and friends of friends are happy with the quality of their photos, it really doesn't matter what some person on a forum says.