The 7 dogs in That Dood Squad get their Packers game faces on in Instagram photo

It’s a toss-up as to what’s most impressive about That Dood Squad’s Packers photo — that somehow they got seven dogs to pose perfectly together on a convertible or that two women in Atlanta had all the green-and-gold gear to dress them.

Either way, the portrait is about as cute as canine cheeseheads come. No wonder it’s wagged a lot of tails in Wisconsin.

Since becoming Instagram official this year, That Dood Squad has been making people smile with photos of five goldendoodles, one sheepadoodle and one cockapoo rolling in a 1967 cherry red MGB convertible around Atlanta. They’ve done elaborate shoots for everything from National Doughnut Day and Shark Week to Harry Potter’s birthday and Earth Day. They’ve worn rain boots, sunglasses, aprons, Krispy Kreme hats, ties, cat ears, sombreros, tighty-whities and nearly every kind of bandanna imaginable. 

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It’s easy to see how they’ve quickly racked up more than 20,000 followers on Instagram and another 4,000 on Facebook. But how the heck did a seven-pack of adorable doodles from down South end up backing the Pack? 

It doesn’t hurt that the squad photographer happens to be a lifelong Packers fan from Wisconsin. Shelby Steckbauer grew up in Wausau. Her parents, Carrie and Jeff Steckbauer, are diehards. When she moved to Atlanta 3½ years ago to build her photography business, ShelbyRae Photographs, her Packers allegiance came along with her.

Like the six other women in That Dood Squad, she started out posting photos of her own dog, Lola, on her own Instagram account. When the women found each other through the Instagram community and started going out for brunch and cocktails, Steckbauer was surprised to learn that Lauren Melim was also a Packers fan. First clue: Her dog is named Packer.

It turns out Melim has a Wausau connection, too.

“I grew up vacationing, as weird as that sounds, in Wausau every year, because that’s where my grandparents lived,” Melim said.

Each summer, her family would road trip from Washington, D.C., to Wisconsin. Her grandparents have since passed away, but her parents, Pete and Carol Melim, still have the house there and come back for visits in the summer. It was her mom, who worked as the junior sportswear buyer at Prange’s department store in Green Bay, who passed her love of the Packers along to Lauren.

Get two Packers fans together, no matter the state, and well, fun things happen.

They joke that the other members of That Dood Squad didn’t have a choice when they came up with the idea of doing a Packers-themed portrait with the cleverly cheesy caption of “The kick is up and it’s Gouda!” But the doods and their humans are always up for the next creative shoot.

“Everyone else was pretty good sports about it. We had a lot of fun with it,” Melim said. “We got so many comments on that photo and people tagging their friends and friends of friends.”

The squad’s starting lineup is Packer, Lola, Addie, Sheldon, Charlie, Charlie and Cedar. They range in age from 1 to 7, and if there’s a troublemaker somewhere in the bunch, nobody is saying. Four of the seven are therapy dogs with Happy Tails Pet Therapy in Atlanta, so getting the crew to look so fetching all at once isn’t as hard as you might think.

“There’s no secret behind this. They’re all very well-behaved dogs,” Melim said. “If we sent you a video of what our photo shoots look like you would be shocked. They all just kind of sit there.”

There are a few tricks of the trade, like letting the dogs run off some of their energy before Steckbauer starts shooting.

“When we started, of course, they thought they were just playing the entire time. But once we started shooting more and more — we sometimes shoot two times a month and we can shoot for 4-plus hours — they kind of know it’s time to work.”

The group photos started last Christmas when Kim McNamara, owner of Addie and the convertible, had the idea to do a holiday photo at a local tree lot with the dogs in her classic car. Each woman posted it on her dog’s individual Instagram accounts and it went viral. They launched That Dood Squad in March.

“We were just kind of blown away with how many people wanted to see more,” Steckbauer said. “People wake up to look at Facebook and see our photos, because they know something is coming.”

They’ve since been featured on TV talk show “Pickler & Ben” and in Country Living magazine. Wherever they go (and they get a lot of requests for suggested shoots), they get people who stop and take photos. The challenge is to keep coming up with more imaginative themes to top the last one, while always keeping in mind the creature comforts of the models, like limiting work during hot weather and not packing too much into one shoot.

“There’s lots of fun and treats and kisses involved,” Melim said. “Lots of laughing.”

If the stars align, Steckbauer said they would like to do a That Doods Squad calendar to give back to the community. Also on their long-range calendar: Super Bowl LIII, which just happens to be in Atlanta in February.

Imagine the photo possibilities ...

“This is a sign, you guys, I’m just saying,” Melim said.