Canines pose for `tongue-in-cheek` calendar in yoga positions

London -  A photographer from Texas and his former yoga teacher wife have created a calendar, where rescued canines are pictured mastering a series of tricky yoga positions.

Dan Borris and Alejandra from San Antonio, Texas, have put their talents to good use by rounding up rescue puppies and kittens from an animal shelter to help them design the unique tongue-in-cheek artwork.

The duo spent hours in the studio with the adorable animals before using computer software trickery to bring the difficult poses as close as possible to the real thing.

Borris admitted that the work required a great deal of patience.

He insisted that they were inspired by their love for animals and enjoyed creating pictures that made people smile.

“The inspiration came from a writer friend of mine who practiced yoga,” he said.

“She was telling me about her dog licking her face in a headstand pose and generally getting overly involved in her yoga,” the Daily Mail quoted Borris as saying.

Borris revealed that that he was first taken with the idea of seeing dogs doing yoga, but then the theme of cats, kittens and puppies followed.

“At that moment I thought wouldn’t it be great to see dogs doing yoga. I love dogs and was doing a lot of yoga as well,” he said.

“It was something so different from my usual work and I love making these photos in order to make people smile and learn about yoga at the same time.”

“We find the animals every where. In the beginning we worked with our friend’s dogs but of course the original pioneer Yoga Dog and Yoga Cat were our dog, Mela and our cat, Snoosh. We were then very lucky and happy to work with animals for adoption at The Animal Defence League shelter in the city.”

In the studio, the couple worked together to recreate a variety of complicated yoga positions such as the lotus and, of course, the downward dog.

While Borris photographed the dogs and cats, Alejandra used her experience and TTouch training - a specialist therapy for animals which helps the animals feel safe and comfortable.

“We have poses in mind and try to get them as close as possible but the final images are the product of many hours of very detailed work using Photoshop,” he added.