Your signal of success will be the cat's ears. "Loud or harsh sounds make cats twitch their ears backwards, and that doesn't look as good as a cat with its ears up and forward. So if the ears are back, you're not getting the right sounds for photography."

And your first test of your results, Bill suggests, is to check the eyes. "If I don't have the animal's eyes sharp, it's not a good picture."

So now that you know how to get them to pay attention, the big question is, how do you get them to sit still?

The short answer: get help. Notice that earlier we mentioned Bill's wife, Peggy. She's the invaluable assistant—the pet wrangler.

Take the image of the four kittens on the chair. To appreciate what it took to get that photo, you'd have to see the behind-the-scenes movie that, unfortunately, wasn't made. Here's how Bill describes it: "I have to stay behind the camera, but Peggy is inches off camera and picking 'em up and putting them back in place and keeping their attention. It's just chaos. I've got to keep shooting and making little noises until I get them. And it never fails—I'll get three of them looking the right way and the other one looking the other way. It takes miles of patience—and sometimes it's a grabshot; that's all it is."

To balance out the chaos, some practical advice: let them do what they want to do, and even encourage them to do it with some well-chosen props. What cat can resist a cardboard box, or a wicker basket, or a flower pot? "I often have an idea in my head about the way I want the shot to look," Bill says, "but that might not match what's in the animal's head. When I'm having the most trouble trying to get them to do what I want them to do, I just back off and see what they're going to do. And they end up making the shot for me because their idea is a better one than what I had." Which is how the photo of the cat peeking out of the flower pot happened.

"I first had the pot upside down so the cat could sit on top of it; that's how I pictured it in my head. So I'd put him up and he'd jump down, again and again. I couldn't get one shot. Then we put the pot on its side, and the cat was starting to go inside. Then we tipped it up and put him in. My idea was to get his head up so we could see his whole face, but he had a better idea—and it made a cuter shot."

The photo of the dog on the chair happened because...well, because dogs know what they like and they expect you to know it too. "Peggy was standing on the left side, and he was a great dog who wanted attention, and about half a second before I took the picture she had been rubbing his ears. I said, 'Pull your hand away!' and she did, and I got the shot."

Sometimes you have to use a little inducement. The cat and the turkey decoration, for example. A little oil from the top of the canned cat food on the turkey's nose did the trick. "I got a few pictures of the cat licking at it," Bill says, "but it's a better picture when they're nose to nose."

A glance at Bill's photos will tell you that props and backgrounds play a big part, too. The props mostly come from his home, but if he runs out of items or ideas, a trip to a local crafts store will fire up his imagination. "And fans of my work in town will let me borrow things for the "Pet of the Week" picture."