It was worse, I think, than herding cats.

I took a picture of the dogs today to send away for our “family portrait,” and as I suspected, cooperation was at a minimum.

I started outside on the deck. I figured they would look cute all lined up on the swing. Bad idea.

First, nobody wanted to sit on the swing without laps, and simply getting three or four of them up there was difficult. Going for five, as it turns out, was impossible. Besides, they all looked miserable, not at all good for a picture.

That led me to the sofa. It’s their favorite spot in the house, next to the bed pillows, so I thought maybe they would be a little easier to deal with. At least I got all the dogs up there, but everybody spread out so far that I couldn’t get them all in the viewfinder.

At this point, Buddy decided he didn’t want to play any longer. Do you have any idea how hard it is to force a grumpy weiner dog out from under a bed? Yes, blood was spilled. Yes, it was mine.

Finally, in what I can describe only as a stroke of genius, I decided to line the little darlings up — get this — on the kitchen table. Guess what? It worked!

They were so confused that jumping down became secondary to figuring out what was going on. Then, 13 attempts later, I finally got the picture I was after. What do you think? Aren’t they adorable?