Wootube!

Dolittle's got nothin' on me

agility

GOTCHA

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On this day in 2010, a FAT asshole joined the WooCrew.  He eschewed the other four legged members of the family, and took out a hit on Dexterpuppy, but took a shine to His Orangeness and that’s remained his MO for the last 9 years.  Except he’s much slimmer now.

Happy Gotcha Day, TWooie (formerly known as, *gag* Harley)!!!

It would be so much more satisfying to be able to include his DNA results here, along with the reveal of whether or not he is actually related to his brother Wootie, but those results won’t be back for a couple of months.

For his Gotcha Day he got me yelling at him at 1:30AM to “SHUT UP AND LET ME SLEEP I LET YOU OUT BEFORE BED ALREADY!!” because he had some “bad bottom” and had to go, which he did, allll across the living room floor.  Blech.  Maybe too many goldfishie crackers?

But you gotta admit that the flying goldfishie crackers make for some super hilarious photos, so … worth it!

I recently got myself a portable strobe in an attempt to up my photo game.  I want to be able to light doggies anywhere, any time, and take advantage of locations where extension cords cannot go, like the beach and the mountains and at sunset and sunrise.  And also, apparently, in my living room, with the backdrop pinned over the TV slide out, whilst throwing fish crackers at my dogs.  And what I have discovered is that most of my dogs suck at catching cookies I throw at them.

Addy is shocked – SHOCKED I TELL YOU – that I would have the audacity to hurl crackers at her.

Winter’s strategy is to entrap the flying fish within Mouth Bars of Gooey Substance.

Wootie confused them with a game of soccer, and tried to head them into the goalie net.

But Dexter, dear, darling Dexter, was the worst of them all.  He has exactly zero concept of how to catch anything.  At all.  Cookies are no exception.

Fortunately, he is very good at other things, like being extremely handsome and – more importantly – stationary, for minutes at a time, while I fiddle with position and power output of my new strobe to get the perfect sunset shot.

He really is such a very good boy.  Sometime within the last year, he has unfortunately been afflicted with a nasty, biting parasite :(

Its scientific name is Maisie ChompsHisNeck.

This parasite seems benign … even kinda cute.  But it is relentless, and whenever Dexter tries to run, the parasite attaches itself to his neck.

Getting upset with the parasite just causes it to become more aggressive.

Maisie is becoming quite the little pest!  When she was a small puppy and I wrote up her adoption profile, one of the things I warned people about was that she had the potential for dog on dog aggression as a direct byproduct of over arousal.  The number of applicants who failed to grasp what that could even mean was depressing.  The number of applicants who dismissed this possibility as me being overly dramatic was just annoying.  I got a lot of condescending nods and discreet eyerolls.  And here we are 7 or 8 months later, and when Maisie gets really wound up, she likes to redirect onto one of her playmates and bite them in the neck or face.  This is a good place to insert an “I told you so,” I think.

Poor Dexter, for all his creeping around and flashing Mad Teeth(tm) at things, is at heart a pacifist and couldn’t bite another dog if his life depended on it.  I’ve said many times that if he had just kicked the living shit out TWooie once, TWooie would have a lot more respect for him.  But instead he does the creeping/teeth thing while TWooie snaps and him and pulls out his hair, and never takes it any further than madmouth.  He does the same thing with Maisie – as much as he would like her to stop losing her shit and biting him, he doesn’t know how to get her to quit it and leave him alone.  So, bless him, he tries to get her to knock it off by using the universal hand signal for STAHHHP.

It doesn’t work of course, and Maisie just thinks he’s boxing with her and gets more amped up.  So she is now learning to wear a basket muzzle, so that when we are going for a walk (she doesn’t do this when playing ball, and sticks very diligently to her own ball and doesn’t chase anyone else’s) she won’t leave holes in my poor boy’s neck and shoulders.  He used to really love playing the run-and-snap-teeth game with her, the same one he played with Tweed for years, but then she started attacking him and now he’s all huffy about it and doesn’t want to run with her anymore.  We’re hoping the muzzle means they’ll be able to play that game again.

She is an awesome puppy in most ways, but she’s kind of a dick when it comes to getting all worked up about stuff.  She is also a dick when it comes to her Jolly Rope Ball.  Doesn’t matter what other toy she has, if someone else picks up that particular toy, she turns into a raging bitch.  Poor Dexter can only play with it if Maisie is on a leash.

Poor Wootie is so scared of her that he won’t even try to play with it anymore, so I had to buy him his own and we only play with it when Maisie is in a crate in the house … otherwise we have one terrified Wootie and one Rage-ie Maisie with TWO Jolly Rope Balls to snarl over.

He is, however, allowed to play with his frisbee unmolested.

And did you notice in the previous photo that his Flamboyance(tm) is growing back in nice and full?  Finally!  It’s still a pale shade of the gloriousness that it once was, but at least it has some heft and volume again.  It’s thicker even than The Flambe(tm) of his brother’s, at last!

Fae Fae (also known by her stage name, Poops On The Floor Every Night While Everyone Else Is Sleeping) is (was) allowed to play with Maisie’s frisbee, mostly because everyone fears her tiny warbly wrath.  Until Maisie and her stupid sister Peetie pulled the blue frisbee into tiny rubbery bits by arguing over who got to hold it.

Fae is such a little bag.  Everyone thinks she is so sweet and adorable and full of hair, but that’s because they never see her flashing her pearly whites at everyone and stalking around with scorpion tail being a total hag.  She won’t even play with Addy anymore, and Addy’s mostly too scared to try to attempt it … though once in a while her silly sighthound side gets the best of her and she gives it a go.  They get along fine, they just don’t really play or snuggle (well, nobody snuggles with Fae, cuz she’s mean).  Like right now Addy is snuggled up in a dog bed with Spring, while Fae is curled up on TOP of Addy’s snuggle sack in the chair next to me, so Addy can’t use it.  Super bitch.

Don’t feel too bad for Addy though.  Because she is super spoiled.  Since the warm weather beat back the snow (seriously, Mother Nature is on crack … we went from well below zero and two feet of snow to 22+ tank top weather in the space of about 4 days), her frog-shaped splashing pool is back in business and she spends a good deal of time out there yelling at me to throw water with the chuck it so she can chase the droplets, or toss pebbles in the pool so she can try and find them with her little feetsies.  And a friend of mine just gave us a second plastic pool shaped like a crab, which we are about to fill up with damp sand, so she can dig in it to her heart’s content.  Because she is just THAT spoiled that she gets her own waterpark and her own beach.  If I could get her to transfer her love of chasing water droplets and/or wet sand to a frisbee, she would be the world’s most adorable disc dog, but Addy don’t play that.

As I have no disc dogs of my own, I instead did a model call for disc dogs just so I could take some photos of them.  Other people’s dogs are just that much more talented than mine.  Also bendier.

This one was my favourite.  Did so many cool things with the frisbee!

But this guy here, Dylan, I just love.  I first met him when I was photographing dock diving last August at the fair.  He’s a border collie/whippet mix and he is super athletic, super hilarious and generally just really really nice.  One day he might be a daddy, and I’m hoping the timing is right for me to get a puppy from him!  I am also hoping that is a long way away, because currently I have 80 million dogs and I don’t need any more.

 

Photographing disc was a fun way to spend a Sunday.  I have never tried disc with my dogs, because I have only a couple of dogs that are leapers and they aren’t the same ones that really like frisbees.  Maisie likes frisbee a lot, but she’s more of an on-the-ground dog.  I have started doing some agility foundation work with her and she is catching on super quick.  I think she will be a nice little agility dog – not crazy fast (or just crazy), like, say, Lavish:

(funny story – I posted this photo on my Big Air page and when I showed it to Lavish’s owner, she said “ASSHOLE” … and I still don’t know if she meant me or Lavish.  Either way, I was delighted!  LOL)

… but rather I think Maisie will be more like Tweed – reasonably fast, concise and think-y on the course.  She is just generally a think-y dog (except when she is being a parasite).  I really miss playing agility with Tweed (also I just miss Tweed).  Dexter was like trying to stop that train from that movie with Denzel Washington.  Spring is like trying to to get a rock in a slingshot without arms, and then suddenly achieving it and shooting it across the planet.  Fae is like trying to get a mouse on speed to concentrate.

Mr. Woo was like trying to smack a particularly irritating mosquito.  doG love him.

But I think Maisie is going to take her “job” seriously and understand what the end game is.  She’s just that kind of dog.

Until then, my handsome Dexter will keep me busy posing beautifully for beautiful photos :)

I’m a lot more chipper these days, you may have noticed.  Now that I’m not trapped in 12 freezing-cold square feet without water or a working toilet, with 9 super bored dogs, life is a lot less stressful.  Thank you all for sticking with me through the dark times :)

Also, save your pennies because I have some truly amazing themed photo sessions coming up in the next few months, at some truly amazing and STUNNING locations!  To make sure you’re kept in the loop, be sure to like and follow my photography page on Facebook.  You won’t want to miss these, if photos of your doggos are what you’ve been craving!

“I Used To Read This Blog

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…by someone named “The Food Lady” but she stopped blogging like a month ago for some reason.”

*waves*  Hello!  Remember me?  I know some of you remember me, because at Nationals last weekend I had no fewer than three different incidents of perfect strangers walking up to me and saying “Hey, aren’t you The Food Lady?  I read your blog!”  This made me feel guilty, because there has been no blog to read since early July.  Worst (extremely) minor dog-related celebrity EVER.

I have had a real busy month!!  Between clients, shooting trials, competing and the extreme heat and weird orange haze that hangs over us all here due to the history-making apocalyptic wildfires that are consuming my province, not to mention my Very Angry elbow, opportunities to take photos of my motley crew are few and far between.

So let’s get down to business and I’ll tell you what’s been happenin’ ’round these parts.

My Springalingaling went to the AAC Nationals and did WAY better than I could ever have imagined!  As you all know, Spring and the venue Thunderbird are not good friends.  For the past several years, Spring has “eliminated” in the ring due to some unknown stressor that causes her to fear Thunderbird in all its white sand glory.  So when we went to Regionals this year, our goals were simple and minimal:
– eat lots of cheese
– have lots of fun 

We were successful in both of these endeavors, and even though Spring did not hit a single contact or get a single clean run all weekend, she was pretty happy to be there, did not befoul any of the rings, and managed to qualify for Nationals.  On the basis of this success, our goals for Nationals, though still simple, were:
– eat lots of cheese                            
– have lots of fun                              
– try to hit at least some contacts

And once again, my happy, narrow little doggie pulled through!  She ate all the cheese.  She was having a good time out there.  She hit EVERY SINGLE CONTACT and she managed to pull out three clean runs out of six.  She had one bobble at the weave poles in Standard 1 and I sent her off course into the wrong tunnel mouth in Jumpers 2 (totally my bad) and in Gamblers 2, which she absolutely could have run clean, in the closing I was too tired from the heat and smoke and early mornings/long days and accidentally sent her over an off course jump.  Again, totally my bad.

BUT let’s recap – my nervous little doggie found her Brave and ran at Nationals, despite her multi-year phobia of Thunderbird and despite the fact that since the Sadist stopped teaching we have had no opportunity to train since essentially November of last year.  And despite the air quality index being somewhere between stuck-in-a-coal-mine and trying-to-breathe-on-the-surface-of-the-sun.  I suck, my dog is awesome.  Cheese is god.  And Spring even managed to pull out a podium placement in her Standard 2.  Even Tweed, winner of Regionals, never managed a podium placement at a Nationals!  And to top off what was already an amazing weekend for me, she won an award for the Top Rescue Dog in the Regular division.

I’m literally the proudest of her I have ever been. NOT because she won things (although I *do* enjoy winning things) but because she had such a good time and was so willing to work for me despite all our challenges.  So I took this shitty photo of her with her ribbon.

Such a good girlie!

This is NOT a good girlie.  Her tally for August is: one baby duck eaten, one baby chicken eaten, one homicide with her partner-in-crime Winter perpetrated against an innocent adult duck.  Of course she is happy about it though. She’s an asshole.

(Asshole #2)

All my precious babybabies went back to the rescue headquarters to be neutered and head off to their new homes.  I miss them so much!

Although I will apparently always have the “eau de puppy pee” odor to remember them by.  I took everything out of the dog room this week, scrubbed the whole thing down with the steam mop (parbroiling my arm in the process.  F*ck did that ever hurt!) and liberal vinegar, but still the stink lingers.  Any suggestions for a good, safe odor remover?

We had a houseguest for a little while who got off to a rocky start by jumping out of the car and immediately killing a chicken and putting holes in my beloved turkey Terrence.  We spent the next few days making use of a long line and reminders that killing my poultry is wrong (Addy and Winter have, obviously, still not grasped this concept) and by the end of her stay, she was pretty reliable about following the No Murders On My Property rule.  Peetie, in her innocence, thought the houseguest was wonderfully fun.

Alfie is still with me, until October.  I love him so much.  I DO NOT WANT TO GIVE HIM BACK.  Would it be wrong to flee the country with him tucked into my backpack?

July was full of photo shoots of other people’s doggies, which makes me so happy, because I love doing doggie photo shoots so very much.  Also I like paying my rent :)

This is Stanley and Brunswick, who are besties, as you can see by the way THEY ARE HOLDING PAWS (and no, I did not pose them this way, they did it themselves!)

This is Malcolm and Lila who henceforth shall be referred to only as The Goobers.

This is Texas The Tripod, whom you’ve seen before in my composite, but I love this photo so much I needed to share it.

This is Mia and Kasper, who are so photogenic that I couldn’t pick just one photo to share, so you have to look at two different ones.

(yes they are on railway tracks.  no you shouldn’t lecture me on the perils of shooting on railways tracks)

(yes they are standing in a boat that does not belong to me.  no you shouldn’t lecture me on using someone else’s boat)

This is Robbie, who is crazy-for-tennis-balls!

I have 4 or 5 more shoots lined up for this month, but would love to have more, so feel free to contact me if you want to do a session!

Everything else is 100% normal around here.  Piper is back to her old self, absolutely and completely.  No more wobbles, no more head tilt, hiking three times a week.  She is a remarkable fighter! Not even phased by bears (slash-totally-oblivious-to-the-bear)!

And now for the ultimate in OH MY GOD photos …. but first!  Some kind of blogging law says I am required to advise you all that in exchange for my testimony I received this product free as compensation.  But let me tell you that I would rave about it anyway because JUST LOOK AT IT.  LOOK AT IT!!!

Is this not the most awesome thing you have ever seen??  EVER???

Susannah of Crochet Critter Craft made this for me in the likeness of His Orangeness, Mr. Woo.  It’s a drink holder, though it has never held a drink around here because I keep putting it next to Mr. Woo, laughing until I cry, and photographing it.  It is one of the most awesome things I have ever received in my life!  IT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE HIM!!  You need one of these in your life, and then you need to take photos of it with its breathing likeness, and then you need to send me photos of that.  So go to her shop on Etsy and buy one immediately!

I mean COME ON!!!

And you know, I am always happy to help promote the products of your creativity (except porn.  Peetie has gone into heat again and I see enough humping every day that I really don’t need to see any more) so if you have something you want featured in my blog (and I promise to blog more often than once a month!) feel free to contact me!  I love to help people promote their awesomeness, so don’t ever be shy about asking!

And now me, Captain Orange and 11 of our closest friends are heading out for an afternoon hike :)

 

 

 

And This Is Why I Hate You

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Dexter hates Peetie because she doesn’t give him a moment’s peace.

Addy hates Winter …

… because Winter would rather play with Spring, and Addy can’t keep up.

(btw, this is my new favouritest photo EVER)

Dexter hates Winter and Winter hates Dexter because both of them are ornery and weird.

Peetie hates my client dog Diezel, because on land

and at sea (aka the waterin’ hole), Diezel won’t leave her alone.

(What’s that Peetie?  You find it annoying to be pestered constantly and shadowed around?  BOO FREAKIN’ HOO)

My boarding dog Cao hates Peetie

because Peetie climbs out of the water and shakes all over everydog nearby.

Of course, so does Diezel.  And he spends a LOT of time getting in and out of the water!

Mini Mama hates me

because I insist on bringing her puppies outside every afternoon for a romp.

ZOMG right?  So cute?!?!  They turned 4 weeks old on Saturday.  I started feeding them mush meals, which they find very exciting, and which I find adorable.

They’re so FAT.  I love them!

BTW, in the photo up above, Mini Mama is in the crawl space under my house and staring at me through some weird random little window that exists in the crawl space.  I don’t know why she does this – she seems to really like it under there, with what I assume are a multitude of spiders and other creepy crawlies.  She asks to go out often so she can sit in the crawl space.  The window is like the icing on the cake, so she can sit in there but still watch everything.  She’s an odd little dog.

I don’t usually bring my Big Girl Camera on hikes/walks because I feel like it’s more important to keep an eye on dogs that belong to other people than it is to be framing and setting up shots.  Also, my camera hurts me/my neck/my arm, because it’s HEAVY.  Lugging it around for an hour and a half gives me a wicked head/neck ache and lately my right arm has been going numb.  Some people in one of the photography groups I’m in swear by this nifty gadget and I’m thinking I might need one!

I never bring the camera when I do a forest hike, because I think I’d die trying to climb hills with an extra 9 lbs of camera hanging from around my neck, but today was easy terrain and an easy group of dogs (ie, mostly my dogs!).

Also the scenery is very pretty on this walk, which makes for nice dramatic backdrops for portraits.

(This photos makes me like Peetie!  Even though she is not wearing a collar in it because she rolled in cow poop AGAIN)

I also brought my camera to Regionals, but I didn’t take very many photos because there’s a professional photographer for the event, and I don’t think it’s cool to scoop her business.  However, I also don’t have any spare money, so I was unfortunately also not going to pay her to take a photo of Springles with her ribbon for qualifying for Nationals (did you like that slick segue?)

Yeah, we managed to qualify by the skin of our teeth.  Well, actually we had quite a bit of wiggle room, but it was definitely not a podium-worthy performance, or even an impressive-placement-performance.  As I went in with no expectations except to keep it fun for her and keep her stress-level to a minimum to prevent poopage (because she hates Thunderbird, if you recall, and every year she shits or pisses in the ring there, and ONLY there) it was kinda fun to just run for the hell of it.  But it also meant that I had to not take it very seriously, and I have not found that happy compromise between taking it seriously and stressing out my poor overly sensitive terrier, and having a lark and therefore handling like an idiot.  It was interesting to note just *how easy* it is to stress Spring out though … in our second gamble, which she could have gotten (she is a gambling fool), she bounced every so slightly off my foot when I sent her out to the final obstacle, and I’m not even kidding, that slight bounce of her paw off my sneaker was enough to turn her to the right and cause her to take a different obstacle instead.  Because the closing gamble is timed, and one tends to get a little panicky, and that may have been the first time all weekend I showed her any kind of stress and WOW, what an effect that had.

I love my Springaling very much, and she has come a long way from the dog that used to stress pee and poop in the house if I left her alone for as much as 45 seconds, but she’s still super duper sensitive, and I am super duper a spaz, so we are not destined to be a super duper competitive team.

As Dexter is pretty much stone deaf, and Fae is The Most Emo Dog Ever, I guess I’m going to have to start training Peetie if I want a new agility dog.

Oh, I also took a photo of Fiona and Rogue on the podium in first place blah blah blah, I should just recycle the same text every year since they win EVERY YEAR pretty much.

Here’s a photo of Addy that I find adorable, because she is obviously smiling in it!

And here’s a photo of Miss Piper because she’s started having quite a bit of trouble walking lately, and I’m not sure how many more hikes she has left in her :(

Finally!!

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I found a use for Winter!

Chuck him in the swimming hole and he makes excellent funny faces when he comes tearing out!

To be fair to me, I didn’t just chuck him in the swimming hole to be a jerk and get funny photos of the aftermath…I chucked him in there because it was HOT and he looked like he was on fire.

Now Fae … Fae I chucked in because it was funny.

She gets the zoomies afterward, makes for great action shots.

I’m kidding, I’m kidding!  I tossed everyone who didn’t voluntarily swim into the water because we were walking on a hot, dry, dusty gravel path and everyone had their tongues down to their ankles, so they needed to be wet.

I did NOT, however, toss Gotham in, because Auntie Fiona is a Helicopter Mommy and would’ve beaten ten kinds of holy hell outta me.

He went in on his own.  I did not nudge him in with my foot.  I swear.

Isn’t he the cutest though?

Almost as cute as my puppy Dexter (who gracelessly splooshes into any available body of water all of his own volition)

Poor Dexter, he is so deaf now.  He can barely hear anything at all, unless I’m right up close to him and speak in a certain register (IOW, I sound like I’m practicing my “man voice” when I speak to him).  In talking to some of his siblings’ owners, I have learned that several of them are quite deaf as well.  It’s called “Adult Onset Deafness” and it’s genetic in border collies.  I can tell it’s frustrating for him because he peers very sternly at my mouth, trying to lip read, and then runs through a variety of behaviours in case one of them is what I was asking for.  I have misplaced him a couple of times while hiking because he runs off to poop (another family trait – the need for extreme distance and privacy whilst pooping!) and then can’t find us again, nor hear me calling him.  Once upon a time we had a vibrating collar floating around my rescue … if I can’t locate it, I’m going to have to look into getting him one I think.  I don’t want to lose my baby boy!!

Being nearly stone deaf does not stop him from having fun though.  Unfortunately, he has fun with Peetie, so I’m stuck with her.  The things I do for love.

We went out to the dykes in Pitt Meadows today because it’s closer and uses less gas, and because I didn’t have any client dogs to walk today.  I’m very sad, because my full time client is moving out of an area that I service and I am going to miss him :(  If you know a fantastic dog walker in East Van, let me know so I can refer her to someone good.

It also means a good portion of my monthly income goes down the drain.  Poop.  I need some ideas for marketing me – but the catch is, they have to be pretty much free.  I know you gotta spend money to make money, but I can’t spend money I don’t have!  Any brilliant ideas to share with me?  I have some great clients and they are all super happy with what I do, but I need to acquire several more of them to make a go of this.  I just picked up a couple new clients, but I want to pick them up (not to chuck them in the watering hole, I swear!) faster and in greater numbers.  So hit me with your best free or cheap marketing ideas please!!  You are smart peoples, you must have some hidden gems you’re willing to share.

I shall reward you with photos of my foster puppies at the ripe old age of two weeks.  Their eyes all opened on the same day, about day 13, and now they all stare at me like I’m a Bigfoot sighting when I get into the xpen.  They aren’t very interactive yet, just eyeball-y.

Sable male remains my favourite because I think he’s the cutest, but all of them are pretty damned adorable.  When do you think we should start the naming contest?  Like, when they have more personality or sooner than that?

This puppy already has a name; he goes by Warren and he’s the same age as my puppies!

His mom said “Your foster is going to have the puppies on the ASCBC trial weekend” and I was all “Shut up!  No she isn’t!  You’re gonna have YOUR puppy on the trial weekend!” and she was all “Nuh uh!  I refuse to have a baby on Mother’s Day!” And so Mini Mama had her puppies on the trial weekend Saturday, and Hailey had Warren on Mother’s Day.  Karma is so cruel.

However, it worked out awesome because then we could get photos of them being adorbz together and being all the same age and stuff.

Maybe I should get into baby photography…I hear that (and weddings) is where the money is!  Sadly, I do not have a constant supply of puppies to increase the level of awesome.

It was a good excuse to practice compositing though.  Still need a lot more practice, but it’s super fun!

I got some other baby things this weekend too!  Handsome Terrence made me some more baby turkeys.  I hope they all turn out like him!

And the ducks made me some more ducks.

The dogs have settled into the new farm very well.  I can now leave them outside by themselves for short periods of time without worrying about them getting into trouble.  They know the boundaries now and they no longer fence fight with the neighbours’ dogs.  I still have to pick up all the eggs before I let the dogs out, otherwise they go egg hunting and eat them, but otherwise they just hang out, nap in the shade, steal apples from the chickens, stuff like that.  They really are settling in nicely.  They still bark at/chase horses along the fence, but not as often and not for as long.  They are starting to get used to the idea of horses I think.

Now the Littles have to wear their Coyote Vests again though … not because coyotes, but because Bald Eagles!  I learned the eagles have been stealing my ducks and last week I was making dog dinners, saw a huge shadow go past the window and heard a chicken freaking out … I ran outside (with the bag of frozen peas still in my hand) and saw a bald eagle with one of my hens in its grasp.  Utterly without thinking I ran across the yard and KICKED the eagle square in the chest!!  Who does that??  It let go of my hen and flew off though.  Scared the crap outta me.  But now I know where my ducks went for sure.  So Coyote Vests it is, because my dogs are NOT going to be some stupid bald eagle’s afternoon snack!

Life in the sticks is always interesting, if nothing else!

The weather is supposed to turn tonight and all of our hot sunny days will skulk back into rainy drizzle.  It would be great if it didn’t do that thing on Saturday though, as I have a day of mini sessions booked.  And the weekend after that is Regionals, also known as “Springs Annual Ring Pooping Event.”  BTW, I hear they are looking for volunteers for Regionals still … you get a stipend of I think $50 a day or something.  If you’re interested in volunteering, check out their website.

Gotham will be there, so you could meet him!

WARNING: Guard Dog On Duty

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There she is; the fiercest of FaeFaes to ever nap in the driveway. Beware all ye who enter through Food Lady’s gate!

Especially if you’re a HAWK.  Or a PIGEON.  Or a SPARROW.  If you have wings of any kind, Addy bids you UNwelcome.  This is her ferocious battle-the-birds pose.

I kinda wish she wasn’t so bad ass.  She’s roughly the same size as my ducks, and three of those got eaten by hawks and eagles!

But what can you do.  She’s a junkyard dog, after all.

Today was the first really warm day of the year.  Like t-shirt warm.  I’ve taken a bit of a break from interior house stuff to work on exterior stuff.  Last weekend I spent a day putting up fencing along the orchard to separate the orchard from the yard, and by extension, separate the dogs from the outer perimeter fence and thus from joggers, cyclists, horseback riders and John Q Public, all of whom the dogs have taken to barking at and rushing at.  The following morning Winter forgot I spent all those blistered-hands and backbreaking hours stretching and u-nail hammering and ran full tilt into the fence when he tried to chase a cyclist going up the path.  HA HA HA.  WINNER!

(OTOH, today my landlord’s lovely dog Mia chased a cyclist along that very same path, so I’m relieved to know that my dogs aren’t the only morons in the neighbourhood).

The next day Michelle came to visit and I put her to work, as I usually do (she’s a good sport) and we finished fencing off my North pasture to separate *it* from my yard, so the goats can move in.  And so that the dogs cannot get into the pasture and eat my goats.  Because while I have nothing against the practice of eating goats, Harvey and Nibbles are not on the menu!

We also put landscape cloth up all along the front fence, so the dogs don’t see everything going by and bark at it, and it’s worked very well!  Only Addy is sneaky and pigheaded enough to get flat and peer under the gate for a glimpse of shoes or hooves or wheels, but when she sees them and barks, the other dogs have stopped joining her in her noise-making because they haven’t figured out her peeping tom trick and think she’s just being an idiot (and she is!).  It’s really super cut down on the decibel levels when the dogs are outside.

Naughty though she be, she remains one of my favouritest dogs.

The landscape cloth barrier has not stopped the entire neighbourhood from admiring Terrence though.  The dog room window looks out onto the walnut orchard and almost every evening while I’m preparing dog meals, I see at least one person strolling or cycling by stop to stare at Terrence.  A couple of days ago a neighbour I had not yet met came up to my gate when I was outside with the dogs, and explained that his niece and nephew who were here visiting from Alberta have wanted to meet Terrence for DAYS and were too shy to ask, so he brought them over.  They came on in, admired Terrence, held baby turkeys and just generally figured my yard was a petting zoo, which I find both hilarious and kind of accurate.  (They came back today for round two, and were lucky enough to get to go visit goats with the landlord).  And I guess Terrence’s destiny is to be famous.  Which is pretty impressive when you figure that his original destiny was to become Thanksgiving Dinner.  Instead, he has thus far given me 10 little Terrences to pass on the family line, with more potential little Terrences in the incubator right now!

I ALSO spent quite a bit of time last weekend building a stall in the chicken barn for the goats to sleep in at night, but my landlord said it might be a pain in the ass to convince them to go in the barn at night, and figured he would put a goat house in the pasture for me.  My experience with farm landlords for the last 8 years can be summed up with the sentence: “I have a really good idea and I’m going to get on it never!” So you can imagine my surprise when 20 minutes after suggesting he would do this, he rolled up on his tractor with an old livestock trailer hitched on the back and said “Here’s your goat house!”

And of course, me being me, I made him stop the tractor so I could compose a photo of the dogs in the trailer in the right light before he put it in the goat pasture.

Piper is conspicuously absent from this photo, because in her old age she has developed a phobia of vehicles.  She seems to enjoy hiking with us every day, but does not enjoy getting in the van, nor her time in it.  So when she saw me asking dogs to hop in the trailer, she scuttled away and vanished.  And because she’s going on fifteen, she’s allowed to get away with shit like that; it’s a privilege of old age.

“Can’t sleep; cars’ll eat me!”

My landlord also brought me 4 raised garden beds and put them in my yard so I can grow things!  Things like Dexters, which are already coming up nicely.

Things like food, and NOT like Japanese knotweed which has appeared everywhere, as Gracie so kindly demonstrates:

Gracie and her brother and sister came to stay with me for a week while their mom was away.  I took advantage of them living here to test drive my studio on not-my-dogs.

Gracie is the master of the Aussie head tilt!  I miss that head tilt – Tweed got the gene for it with his Aussie half.  None of my other dogs do it.

She’s also very photogenic!

Her, umm, “portly” siblings are slightly less photogenic, poor things.  They are old, and Gracie’s mom adopted them a couple of months ago, so they came to her really, umm, FAT.  They are losing weight slowly, but they are definitely not trim creatures, so it was a challenge to capture them without showcasing all their extra, err, fur ;-)

This is Cyan

And his sister Millie.

They lucked out with their new home for sure!  There were, I think, 6 of them in total, left in “boarding” at a local rescue and then never collected (and the rescue got stiffed on the bill, of course), by a breeder of border collies.  Le f*cking sigh.

This weekend I get to photograph my friend Christine’s new puppy, a border collie/whippet mix.  I am bouncing up and down excited about that, Peetie-style. (I love this photo.  It almost makes me like Peetie.  Almost.)

She may not be graceful.  Or obedient.  Or smart.  But she is funny.

I have another surprise coming this weekend too, but I’m not going to tell you about it yet.  I will photograph it, and spring it on you unsuspecting-like!

Don’t be suspicious.  DON’T BE LIKE THE WOOTWOO!

Next weekend I am at the ASC of BC annual trial as their official photographer, which I am excited about.  The trial is always fun to photograph, and they always feed me food.  And I’m a fan of food, especially free food.

Because it’s a relatively small trial with mostly the same competitors every year, I figure most of the Elite level people already have a kajillion photos of their dogs playing agility taken by me, so I’m going to concentrate on the Novice and Open rings mostly.  Last year I had entered Spring in Novice and photographed the trial at the same time, which means I didn’t get many Novice level photos as I was running in those classes.  So this year I’ll spend most of my time photographing the up-and-comers, and leave some free time for mini-sessions at the event.  If you’re interested, check out my newly designed website for information and pricing.  Hope to see some of you there!

I am going to leave you with this photo of Dexter, which looks like basically all other photos of Dexter, as he only has one facial expression, apparently.

And also with the word HAM.  Which is ANOTHER surprise I can’t tell you about yet, but should be able to spring on you in a few weeks :)

So You Think You’re A Big Chicken Now?

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Yesterday we were at a USDAA trial that was held up here in Canada and someone mentioned that Fae always looks much larger in photos than she does in person, because there’s often nothing (such as a banana) for scale in photos.  So here’s Fae next to a chicken; if you know anything about chickens, then now you know how small Fae really is.

Though she be but tiny, she also be a Great Big Beeyotch.  Pound for pound, she’s a hard ass.  She’ll take on a rooster, if she thinks the rooster needs to learn a lesson.  Not that the rooster ever learns his lessons; so far he has successfully beaten up me, Auntie Michelle, and my landlord.  He really is not a very nice bird at all!

But he has not beaten up Terrence, my Personal Body Guard Turkey.  Terrence will beat up the rooster if the rooster tries to beat me up and Terrence is close enough to get involved.  I really, really like my turkey a lot.

He (with the help of his lady turkeys) made me seven baby turkeys who are right now in the a brooder on top of the washing machine.  Although one has gibbled feet, so I’m not sure he/she is going to make it … but dang, are they ever the cutest!!  I tried to get some photos, but shooting from above next to a red heat lamp just makes for lame photos.  I’m going to try and shoot them under studio lights in the next week while they are still itty bitty.  And cute.  Did I mention they were cute?  They’re almost as cute as HARVEY MY GOAT.

LOOK AT HIS ADORABLE FACE!!!

I love him so much!!  Michelle and I took turns bottle feeding him today.

He’s a big fan of feeding time!

Michelle’s mom is going to make him some fancy collars.  And I’m going to give him a bath because I think he needs to smell better, and not leave dirt on my hands after I pet him.  And I pet him a lot … after milk time, he climbed into my lap like a little dog and fell asleep having a cuddle.  I’m all a-swooning for my goaty baby!

This newborn goat was also cute:

And very tiny, like the size of Fae (see chicken above for scale).  But she is not Harvey, so she is not as cute.

Harvey isn’t allowed to come home until he drinks water from a bucket, which he is so far refusing to do.  Also he needs to be banded so his, umm, manly bits don’t come with him.  My landlord offered to grab the band and let me do it, but I don’t want Harvey to have to go into therapy because his mommy made his nuts fall off.

This is the cow that sometimes comes into my yard.  Frankly, she scares the shit out of me.  She’s just too damn big.  And she looks pissed off all the time.

We had a really nice, chill day just hanging around the farm with the dogs.  Addy did some gardening.

While Wootie did perimeter patrol for potential threats (and judging from the look of him, may have snuck out back to smoke a joint).

And TWooie took first watch.  And he took it seriously.

If the yard was fully secured in terms of fence, I think the WooTWoo would like nothing better than to spend their days out there just keeping an eye on things.  They are great little farm dogs, for their size, and they love just hanging out and surveying their property.  But the yard is not quite securely fenced, as evidenced by this pointy little face staring at me from the WRONG side of the driveway gate:

So clearly, beefing up the fencing needs to move up the priority “to do” list.  I also really need some ideas for making the front fence some kind of privacy fence, because it’s hard to enjoy the yard with the dogs when they ALL make a beeline for the fence line, barking their fool heads off, every time someone walks by.  We are quite near a popular (on leash) park with horse trails, so there are a fair number of people walking or riding by on nice days.  I was thinking of buying planks a couple at a time, whenever I have an extra couple of bucks to throw at it, until I have amassed enough of them to build horizontal slats from post to post with a very minimal gap in them, so people can’t see the dogs and the dogs can’t see people.  I just don’t want them pissing anyone off, because I have a lot of dogs, and all of them are loud.  Any other suggestions?  I probably have a couple hundred feet to do, so it will take me a long while to buy enough planks.

Dexter does not rush the fence.  Especially when he’s getting Auntie Michelle cuddles.

He likes those so much his feet don’t even touch the ground!

Except when he’s doing his impression of an ottoman.

Piper remains … slightly senile

Peetie remains annoying.

And Winter is sitting at the foot of the washing machine, staring at the brooder and wishing baby turkeys would fall into his mouth.

Happy Easter ya’ll!