Creative photographer does newborn shoot for the newest furry members of their family

When a newborn photographer decided to add puppies to her family, she got a brilliant idea: Photograph her new pets like newborn humans.

Photographer Stevie Cruz's children wanted another sibling, but her husband was adamant that they didn't need another human addition to their household. The family members compromised on bringing two goldendoodle puppies into their house. Because Cruz has a background in photographing children and newborns, she decided to create a very original — and very adorable — photo session for the pups based on her usual photo shoots.

Cruz opened her photography business more than six years ago and has been working as a newborn, children and family photographer ever since. In June of 2018, she posted her newborn puppy photo shoot on her website. Given how successful she was with this session, "I believe it now only fair to call this mom photographer a baby whisperer and puppy whisperer," she says.

Like newborns, Cruz says, puppies sleep often. Before the photo shoot, her children (or, as she likes to call them, the puppies' siblings) played with their new pets and seem to have tired them out, putting them in the perfect, relaxed state to be photographed like newborn humans.

The puppies were 9 weeks old, which Cruz says is the perfect time to capture a puppy. The pups themselves are goldendoodles, a crossbreed of golden retrievers and poodles. According to Cruz, the term was coined in 1992 and drops the "p" from poodle and adds a "d" to follow the previously coined term of labradoodle.

The darker of the two is named Nalu, and she even has her own Instagram page, which, at the time of this writing, had more than 250 followers. When Cruz originally took the newborn photos of her two pups, Nalu's sister had not yet received a name. Now, however, she is known as Honey. Both dogs continue to thrive as they grow.

Cruz also couldn't resist taking a stab at a classic sibling photo. The image above shows her two children with Nalu happily posed between them. She states, "My kids love to play with the puppies and how can you not when they are this cute?"