Models who won’t get out of bed for anything less than a doggy biscuit! AND £600 A DAY
WITH her fine bone structure and mane of glossy hair, Iraida the Afghan hound turns heads whenever she enters a room. Like many top models, she can be a bit of a diva — but that’s no deterrent to the high-end designers who are queuing up to work with her. While model Linda Evangelista once famously claimed she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than £10,000, Iraida is less materialistic and will happily perform for the camera in return for a biscuit and ear tickle. So what does it take to succeed in the competitive world of doggie modelling? Here, JILL FOSTER meets five premier pooches and their owners . . .
SLEEK AFGHAN WHO HATES HAVING TO PLAY THE CLOWN IRaIDa, a five-year-old afghan hound, whose name means ‘seeker’ in Russian, lives with owner adrienne Thomas, 50, in London. adrienne says: MoST owners approach modelling agencies to ask if their dog can be put on the books, but Iraida was actually scouted as a puppy.
Since then, she’s appeared in ad campaigns for Gucci, Chanel, Harvey Nichols and River Island and in shoots for Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair and Glamour magazines.
She’s got a sweet temperament and gets on very well with everyone on set. occasionally, she’ll be diva-ish if she’s asked to do anything she doesn’t want to. on one shoot, she had to wear a silly Christmas hat and I could tell she wasn’t best pleased.
She does this thing where it sounds like she’s muttering under her breath. When she had the hat on, she turned to one of the young boys sitting next to her and ‘muttered’. It was hilarious.
And sometimes she likes to keep people waiting to get that great shot. She’ll wait until everyone is about to take a break or pack up and then she’ll do her favourite move of standing on her hind legs and putting her paws on the model’s shoulders. The photographer is always grabbing his camera at that point.
Iraida is particularly beautiful and clients love the fact that she’s such an unusual colour. She’s an ‘oyster brindle’ and there are only a handful like her in the UK.
To keep her coat healthy, we groom her for four hours every week and use Laser Lights Extreme shampoo, which costs £200.
If you don’t take great care with an Afghan’s coat, it gets very knotty, so when she’s offduty she wears a polka-dot scarf to keep her ears from getting tangled. Iraida does around six jobs a year on average, and although the money she earns is good (she has been known to be paid thousands for a shoot), it’s not why we do it.
Some people have accused us of using her as a ‘cash cow’, but nothing could be further from the truth. She is a beautiful dog and she deserves to be shown off to the world. PEOPLE GO DOTTY FOR ROO’S PERFECT SPOTS Roo, a five-year-old Dalmation, lives with Stephen Smythe, 65, a retired company director, and his wife, Carola, 63, in Central London. Stephen says: Roo fell into modelling almost by chance. I was walking her in Hyde Park three years ago when a man came up and said he was doing some photography for Fortnum & Mason’s new café and he’d love to feature Roo as she was so pretty.
It wasn’t the first time that someone had told us we had a good- looking dog. It was my daughter who suggested I sign her up to a modelling agency. She’s done a variety of campaigns for brands such as Cath Kidston, Sainbury’s and McDonald’s. Photographers tell us that her contrasting markings make her very attractive: she’s not too black and not too white. The Cath Kidston shoot was particularly crazy because it involved more than 30 dogs recreating a scene from 101 Dalmations to promote a range of black and white clothes. Funnily enough, Roo’s grandmother actually starred as one of the 101 dogs in the 1996 version of the film.
Roo took it all in her stride and we even bumped into her brother, which was a rather sweet moment.
We don’t treat her as any kind of superstar: she’s simply our family pet who we treat occasionally to the odd grooming session at the vet. She’s
well-behaved on shoots, apart from the time she had a little accident on the floor of a studio.
It was my fault as I’d been rushing around all morning and had forgotten to let her do her business. Another time, she vomited after eating a huge bowl of food that was being photographed alongside her. But photographers are used to it.
Roo loves the attention and knows that if she behaves, she’ll get her favourite treat — a carrot. I’m often dangling them above cameras so we can get the perfect shot.
The most she’s ever earned is £300 for a shoot, and the jobs are sporadic. We may get two or three all at once but then nothing for months, but it’s always lots of fun. PANTO WESTIE WHO ‘FLEW’ ACROSS STAGE Archie is an eight-year-old West highland terrier. he lives with Bronia Pearce, 33, a professional dancer, in reading, Berkshire. Bronia says: IT WAs actor shane Ritchie who first made Archie a star. I was appearing in panto with him and it was around the time that Pudsey the dog had won Britain’s Got Talent. shane thought it would be funny to ‘do a Pudsey’ and get Archie to perform ‘tricks’ with him. shane would then swap him for a toy dog and pretend that Archie was flying across the stage. The children in the audience couldn’t believe their eyes, but the adults were in fits of laughter.
Afterwards, I sent Archie’s details off to the PetLondon modelling agency. He did a huge campaign for the pet charity PDsA last Christmas and his face was plastered all over the Tube and railway stations, and he was on television, too.
We get around six jobs a year and every time we are booked for a shoot I ask if the client wants his fur long or short. some people like them to look a bit fluffier.
We give him a bath before each shoot, which he enjoys, and use a lovely coconut shampoo on him so his fur comes out ice-white.
Once, when we did a shoot for Boden, we had to travel to London in the pouring rain and arrived with Archie looking like a drowned rat. The styling team thought it was hilarious that he sat there, quite happily, while I used a hairdryer on him and he fluffed up in no time.
Terriers are often quite excitable but Archie’s a professional and he’ll often fall asleep while waiting to be called. I keep bits of chicken with me to encourage him to behave.
If I use the word ‘Walk’, he will tilt his head in a very cute way. sometimes he’s booked for jobs simply for that tilt of the head. POODLE RAN WILD IN McCARTNEY DRESS edWArd is a four-year-old miniature ‘red’ poodle. he lives with owner Nicola Kazan, 33, a dog groomer, her husband Tufik, 33, a tailor, and son Theo, five, in eton, Berkshire. Nicola says: EDWARD definitely knows he’s different to other dogs. He has a cool confidence about him as if to say: ‘I’m better than you’. There are not many red poodles in the UK, particularly in this apricot shade, so it’s no wonder he feels special.
He’s a stud dog from the Czech Republic and originally belonged to my friend. One of her other poodles didn’t get on with Edward, so I asked if I could have him. He’s loving, intelligent and likes to be the centre of attention.
someone at ITV needed a red poodle for a show and got in touch after seeing Edward’s picture on Instagram. I then contacted the Urban Paws agency.
Edward loved modelling from the very start. He’s appeared in various fashion campaigns, but the most high-profile is stella McCartney.
It was the Chinese Year of the Dog and her team wanted beautiful dogs to model her clothes. I’d never dressed Edward up in any outfits, but I said we’d give it a go.
Edward couldn’t get enough of the fuss and attention. At one stage, he had two stylists preening and primping him and was wearing a gold dress that was easily worth more than £1,000.
Then something caught his eye and he started racing around the studio. My heart stopped. I thought he’d ruin the dress — but he soon calmed down and we got some gorgeous shots.
Once a week, I will shampoo and condition him, then dry him and make sure there are no knots. It takes around 45 minutes each time and he loves being brushed. He stands still like a statue.
The money he earns varies, but usually it’s around £400 a day. I’m not allowed to say how much we were paid for the stella job but I used £200 of it to treat Edward to a teeth-cleaning session at the vet. FOXY INSTAGRAM STAR TERRIER humPhrey, a four-year-old wire fox terrier, lives with Philip elliott, 54, an education consultant, and Gil morais, 41, a banker in Shoreditch, east London. Philip says: EVER since Humphrey was a puppy we’ve been stopped in the street by strangers asking if they can take his photograph. Wire fox terriers have a lot of charm — there’s something rather nostalgic about them.
He has his own Instagram account and last year we signed him up to a modelling agency.
His first gig was for the designer Tom Ford in a posh flat in the East End of London. Tom Ford has pet wire fox terriers, so we think that’s the reason Humphrey was chosen.
The shoot wasn’t without its stresses for me. Humphrey is just a regular dog — he doesn’t do any tricks — and I had no idea how he’d behave. But he has such a lovely temperament and immediately bonded with everyone on set.
His ‘instructions’ were to follow the male model around his flat as he got dressed for a night out, but at one stage Humphrey had to sit still. To keep him in one place, I had to hide behind the sofa, holding my hand out and saying: ‘stay, Humphrey, stay.’ Thankfully, he did.
At one point, he had to follow the model to the door when the doorbell rang. I didn’t think he’d do it, but he did — and got a round of applause from the team.
Dogs are supposed to know their place, but now that he’s a high-end fashion model, I think Humphrey may get ideas above his station.