Paws In The Garden - Karen Taylor
By Jane Singleton

Originally working as a freelance photographer, Karen Taylor created dog photos, submitted them to editors and publishers, and hoped somebody liked her work. “I submitted as many as 200 photographs for a job and then stood back while someone else made the decision of which to use, which to not use." And no one ever seemed to pick what I considered my strongest work.” That, along with the fact that Karen had long been creating personal cards for her photography clients, led Karen to launch her own greeting card business, Paws In The Garden.

Karen knew there was a niche for her in the greeting card world and she was anxious to fill it. She wanted to produce a dignified card that crossed all ages, crossed all genders, that didn’t try to humanize dogs. “The hats and glasses and all have their place, but that’s not what I was after,” Karen said.

“And I’m emphatic about doing all of my photography outdoors. I’ve never done indoor studio photography; I’ve never had a desire to. Give me a dog outside in his/her natural environment. You’ve got to let dogs relax and be who they are in order to capture their personality. That’s what we’ve tried to create here at Paws In The Garden.”

“Our garden studio is a place where people come with their dogs and their dogs are immediately let off the leash to explore, relax, and have fun. Our garden studio is a magical place. When everyone is comfortable, we just start photographing. My whole focus is for the owner to have memories of a great day with their dog. My sessions usually end up running two to four hours.”

Years ago, when Karen had a request for a photo shoot—say for a German Shepherd—she would search for an outdoor environment that was appropriate for the German Shepherd breed. Karen spent a lot of time searching for different environments for a variety of breeds until 1997, when she and her husband, Jim were able to purchase land that adjoined the backyard of their home.

“It was just a farm field full of weeds,” Karen said, but in the first two years we planted over 2,000 perennials, annuals, conifers, and shrubs. It’s a really magical place—I can’t stress that enough. When people come into our gardens, they are so surprised to find this magical place in the middle of a residential area. And anytime of year when a client comes to be photographed, we can offer an ever-changing backdrop. We are constantly changing and renovating the yard.”

During our interview, Karen mentioned that Michigan was expecting four inches of snow that night and as a result, she had scheduled a photo shoot in the snow. “A client who raises Alaskan Malamutes is bringing five of them here tomorrow for a photo shoot—and with all of these niches of environments in our backyard, we’ll get photos that reflect a natural environment of an Alaskan Malamute. It will in no way look like photographs taken in a backyard, but will look like a wilderness environment. That was my dream—to create these niches that would suit all different breeds of dogs.”

At first, Karen and Jim produced cards with images of Goldens and Labs, but soon added more breeds, all doing what dogs do naturally. Karen describes her husband as Michigan’s version of the ‘Dog Whisperer’. “Dogs just go crazy for him and without him I could not produce high quality photography. He gets the dogs’ ears up, the eyes bright. In a lot of my images, the dogs aren’t looking at the camera, they are looking at him. He’s the toy man, the treat man; he can get a dog to look great. He’s been my partner in almost all of the images. He’s very, very good at it.”

Most of the dogs Karen and Jim photograph for their greeting cards come from local training centers. Since Karen and Jim competed with their Goldens in obedience for years and Karen photographed agility trials, they have an established network in the dog world. When she needs a particular breed to photograph, she puts out calls to training centers, such as the one run by a friend in nearby Ann Arbor, and tells them she needs a Husky, a Lab, or a Malamute. Most owners jump at the opportunity to have their dogs photographed and by choosing dogs from a training center, Karen gets good representations of the breeds and well-trained dogs.

A well-trained dog is a must-have for successful and publishable photographs, Karen says. “If a dog is not relaxed and comfortable performing a sit-stay command for instance, that discomfort comes through in the photographs.” Almost all of the dogs Karen photographs are highly trained and titled dogs, with AKC obedience and/or agility titles.

Karen touts the fact that her greeting cards are produced in the USA, but says it is getting increasingly difficult to do so. “If I chose to have them printed in Asia, the drop in production costs would be dramatic,” she said. But having them produced in her home state of Michigan has advantages Karen values. “It’s great to deal with my printer face-to-face, be there when they go to press, be there in the backroom to match the color, check the color, and know all the people who are involved. From the guys who run the press to the people in the front office who help me work with the files, I like having those relationships. And if there’s a problem, I’m right there that day to help solve it. It’s a team effort and I like that.”

“Then the rest is up to me,” Karen said. After press, Karen processes each card individually. She matches the envelope to the card and encloses each set in a clear acetate bag. Everything stays nice and clean and fresh until it gets to the person who purchases it. “It’s time consuming and tedious and it’s just me,” Karen said. But those are the standards that Karen is happy and proud to pursue.

Karen’s greeting card business is almost two years old now, with the wholesale business just being launched one year ago. Her products are in fifteen states and expansion plans are in the works. Karen plans to feature additional small breeds on her cards and to eventually, sign-on an employee or two.

Karen describes herself and Jim as some of those “crazy dog people.” In thirty years of owning Goldens (of which they’ve owned five), they had never traveled without taking their dogs along. “If our dog couldn’t go, we didn’t go,” Karen said. But while participating in five trade shows last year, they felt it would be unfair to Magic to leave him in a hotel room all day, so they had to leave him at home. Jim says Karen is the one who suffers separation anxiety when they travel, not Magic.

It’s obvious that Karen and Jim love dogs across-the-board, but they admit to being partial to the sporting breeds. “They are so beautiful, they want nothing more than to please, they are outdoorsy, and they are game for anything!” Karen said.

Karen never had a dog while growing up, but was “dog obsessed.” Every childhood book was dog related and all stuffed animals had to be dogs. Karen’s Dad loved gardening and he loved dogs. He passed those loves along to Karen when she was young.

“When I took the Master Gardening Program here in Michigan to become a Certified Master Gardener, we had to do volunteer work. So I worked with the kids at the local elementary school. We started a garden club for the children after school and that was just a blast! Getting those third graders outside digging in the dirt and teaching them a respect for nature—that was fun and beneficial and allowed me to pass my love of nature to these children as my Dad did to me.”

Magic and Karen competed at the world series level of dog obedience, they’ve competed at the regional level, and Magic has a Companion Dog Excellence title. Magic was 14-1/2 last month and is the prince of the house, according to Karen.

“The dogs and the garden are my two biggest loves,” Karen said, “and to be able to combine those loves in my greeting card business is phenomenal. The garden involves hundreds of hours—truly a labor of love. And Jim, an integral part of our card business, also goes to work every day at a regular job and makes possible our pursuit of my dreams. And he loves to work in the garden—it wouldn’t work if we didn’t both love the garden because it’s so time consuming. You can find Jim and me together in the garden on Saturdays and Sundays in nice weather. And visitors, when they see the garden, say they just don’t want to leave. It’s a really, really special place.”

All Labs invites you to stop and visit our Cards and Giftwrap Dept. to look around at all the different Lab greeting cards Paws In The Garden has to offer—sure to satisfy any black, chocolate, or yellow Lab owners love of their wonderful and magical breed.