Spring For President!

Spring For President!

Do you have eyeballs that need washing?  Popcorn that needs eating?  Rabbits that requires chasing?  Is there a spot on your bed that needs to be warmed up in 20lb-terrier-ball increments?  Are there tug toys in your home that are going unshaken?  Geese on your lawn that _nobody_ is warning you about at top volume?

If so, your country needs Spring For President!

Would you vote for her?

I would!

He probably would too.  With every passing day, TWooie grows more enamored with the wee beastie from the land of non-stop-relentless-never-ending-wrestle-games.  He has actually started soliciting attention from her by play bowing and doing his oh-so-weird lunging at her hindleg and grabbing it.  What I find most interesting about this latter move is how much bite inhibition TWooie has, because he never hurts anyone when he does it.  I’ve watched him stand there with Wootie’s whole hock in his jaws and Wootie doesn’t even really notice.  This could be why he prefers to play with Spring over Woo these days – she at least accepts his challenge rather than ignore him.

ZOMG!  TWooie’s discovered girls!

I also find it interesting that he won’t play with her in front of the video camera I keep bringing home from work for the express purpose of capturing it.  I don’t understand how he knows what the camera is – it’s like the size of a playing card, and I have tried all sorts of sneaky ways to film unobtrusively, but he’s not having any of it.

I see what you’re doing there.

I *always* see what you’re doing there because I *never* take my eyes off you!

I should have removed Wootie from the photo, but I found him too amusing loitering in the background.

I know I said I probably wouldn’t be able to post this week, but today was a good photo day and I also decided to teach myself how to clone things out of photos using Lightroom, which is the program I do about 90% of my editing with.

Are you going to clone me out?

Ummm .. Wootie, I think you have already been successfully cloned.

I have no idea what she’s talking about?

For all of you wanna-be photographers out there, successful cloning will be your friend.  Because no matter how talented you are behind the camera, and no matter how pliable your canine subject is in front of it, inevitably you will come across a situation where you get this really awesome, amazing shot … and there’s a pile of dog shit in the foreground or some other thing that just wants to ruin your photo.

I generally don’t bother doing this with my own photos / blog post photos because I want to put more effort into entertaining you than I do in getting perfect photographs, and there are also only so many hours in a day 9that’s why you get to see all the crap my lazy self leaves laying around the acreage all the time!).  But even though I have just one day off this week (I’ve covering for a co-worker’s vacation, so I had to switch my shifts around a little) I was surprisingly productive this morning and when the afternoon rolled around, I had a little “me time” penciled in.  And there’s not much I enjoy more than futzing around with photo editing!

So I tried my hand at cloning in Lightroom, and removed an entire Piper from this shot:

You did WHAT?

Can you see where she used to be in that photo with Dexter?  I thought it turned out pretty darn well!

I was going to save the *shocked* photo of Piper to reveal my latest surprise, but it fit in so well there that … well, I didn’t.  Anyway, now I am without a *shocked* photo to segue into my news item, so I’ll just tell you without a photo intro.

I got another dog!

!!!

HAHAHAHAHA!  Oh you should see your faces.  I didn’t get another dog!  I’m *crazy* but I’m not *insane*. hahahaha.  I kill me.

Actually, what I was going to announce was that I decided to take a second dog to Regionals with me.

Oh hai!

No Spring, not you.  IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT YOU!!

Oh … hai?

And by “I decided to enter Dexter in Regionals” what I mean, of course, is that The Sadist scared me into entering him.  The conversation went something like this:

SADIST: (in terrifying Austrian accent)“You are entering Dexter in Regionals or I am doing this for you.” (grows to 9 feet tall, breathes fire out of his nose, swings rabid ferrets menacingly in my direction)

ME: (sobbing in a fetal ball in the dirt) “Yes sir.  Ok sir.  Please don’t hit me again sir!”

It’s going to be a f*cking gong show, of course.  Whenever I think about it, I break out into a cold sweat and pretty much all I see in my head is this:

But The Sadist had some good points, namely A) Dex is going to be there anyway, may as well do something with him and B) It’s a good opportunity to run him in a very tense atmosphere under pressure and it’s not a chance I have on a regular basis.

I’ve got no expectations of him, of course – at this point, we can barely get through a class exercise without it all going up in the firey flames of Dexter’s brain exploding and smoke coming out of his ears (and he’s got big ears!).  But it might be a nice opportunity to have something to take my mind of the bigger expectations everyone has for Tweed.  So if you are planning to come to Regionals to watch, just look for the ring with the flames and the firetrucks racing toward it, and you’ll find me and Dexter doing something that loosely approximates agility.

Excuse me, but I DO plan to be there.

Spring is definitely coming along for the weekend.  I need something small to hold onto and squeeze away my stress between runs.  I may need a new terrier by the end of the weekend though.

Piper is going to go spend the weekend with my boss.  But I have to find somewhere for the WooTWoo to hang out while I’m away.  Somewhere securely fenced.  And without rabbits.  Any takers?

Why is it so quiet in here all of a sudden?

Think of the HAVOC I could wreak on some unsuspecting dog sitter!

Or maybe someone wants to come spend the weekend at Food Lady Farm and pretend to be me for 4 days?  I, of course, would expect lots of photos and some entertaining commentary too.

WTF?  Where did everybody go???