Shaking off water is a distinctly animal thing to do, and also a behaviour that can look super cool when captured in a photo. Water droplets flying, drool strings extending from flapping lips, ears askew and rolling eyes - capturing a dog mid-shake is the ultimate in freezing a moment in time.

We thought the Shake! challenge would be a really fun way to finish up Emerge. The resulting images our challengers submitted didn't fail to put a smile on our faces.

We simply couldn't make it to a top 10 this time, so here are our top 12 Shake! images, in no particular order. Well done to the photographers.

- Charlotte & Craig 🐶 📸 ✨

Suzy McCracken | Suzy McCracken Photography

Lovely backlight, great moment in the shake and there's a balance in the motion with a circle of white fur.

Megan Thompson | Megan Thompson Photography

Fantastic story-telling here, with the dog on the left facing the shaking dog, eyes closed to avoid getting water in it's eyes! 

Marika Moffitt | Soul Dog Creative (Dirtie Dog Photography)

Great motion and the water droplets stand out nicely against the dark, rocky background.

Louise Kennedy | Phoenix Pet Photography

A perfectly head-on shake. The circular motion looks great and we loved the exposed teeth and lips!

Lisbeth Ganer | LisGanerArt

A well times shake, great low angle and there's a really nice sense of the location in this shot too.

Keri Nakahashi | Keri Nakahashi Photography

What an epic shake! The angles of this dog's body parts really illustrate how intense such a brief moment in time is!

Kelly Pettitt | Kelly Pettitt Photography

For such a crazy moment in time, this image feels very well balanced. The Black and White treatment is excellent.

Karen Havenaar | Pr1mo Fotografie

A great shake and the ball on the grass adds a little more to the story.

Joanne Merner | Your Dog's Photographer

This dog is going all out with its shake! Fantastic expression, great motion and seeing the water droplets against the green is great too!

Holly Cook | Holly Cook Photography, llc

Gorgeous colour harmony, love the drool strings and how the dog's body continues down from the rocks behind.

Diane Gollowitzer | Dogs In Focus Photography

Fantastic textures, the 3 shake images are in different enough positions to warrant including them in this triptych. 

Cindy Mayes

Another awesome shake! The motion blur adds some extra to the movement here and is just the right amount, any more and the eyes may not have still been sharp.

Emerge is the second series in our Unleashed Challenge courses and is made up of 12 challenges over 6 months. It’s open to anyone who has completed our first course in the series, Embark.

So much more than just a challenge, the Unleashed Challenges are an invaluable educational resource that will help you build up a go-to list of shots to help create variety in your work. Designed for anyone to be able to complete whether you just want to photograph your own dog or you are a professional pet photographer.

If you'd like to know more head over here to register your interest and we'll send you all the details when enrolment for Embark next opens in 2023.