dogs in hats

No, not ‘welcome back’ to you … or even to me!  Although I *have* been MIA for a long time.  For a month now, pretty much all I’ve managed to do is wake up, edit, go to work, come home and edit until way too late at night, get a few hours sleep and start all over again the next day.  I had a Fun Match in the middle of September and then right after that an entire day of mini sessions, and then on the heels of that I had another day of mini sessions in early October and then I photographed the UKI Fall Cup the following weekend.  Just non stop shooting and editing – which I LOVE, don’t get me wrong!  If I could make my living doing nothing but photography, I would make it my full time career in a heartbeat.  But I remain perplexed about how people make a living out of doing pet photography without a financially comfortable partner picking up the bills-n-groceries slack in the background somewhere.  And doG knows my 4 legged partners aren’t pulling in the big bucks to support me!  This relationship feels a bit one-sided.

Anyway, as much as I love photographing other people’s dogs, it does have the extreme side effect of having no time at all to photograph my own, much less blog.  Plus, we haven’t done anything interesting to blog about, because according to my dogs I am “the most boring person in the world” and “my ass is glued to the computer chair.”  They aren’t too wrong either, except they omit the fact that they get to go hiking every day and until one of them learns to drive a car, they can thank me for that perk!  And also, blogging about how I’m in my office yelling “stop picking on the damn cat!” and “no we aren’t going outside yet, leave me alone!” isn’t all that scintillating.

However, I am almost entirely caught up on my deliverables and so despite the fact that I have a wicked cold that snuck up on me this morning, I thought I would take this evening to prove that I’m not dead, and have good intentions to blog more regularly again.  And also to welcome this adorable little face back to Casa de Food Lady!

Do you recognize that gleeful little snoot?  Miss Mini Mama has not been adopted yet :(  All her puppies found homes, of course, but Minnie remained at the rescue.  And when the rescue posted asking for foster homes for a litany of needy doggos, and I saw her name on the list, I offered to take her back to foster.  And here she is!  I think she’s pretty happy to be back (although she puked in my van today, so we are going to have to relearn not-getting-carsick) and I am happy to have her back!  She’s such a character; I can’t believe nobody has adopted this sweet little thing.

Not sure if my dogs are quite as happy to have her back.  They were just getting used to Alfie and Betty finally having gone back to their own home.  *I* miss those two, even if my hounds do not.  I do not, however, miss Alfie’s drool.

He is such a nice dog, but his copious amounts of drool is not nice at all.  You could always tell where he had slept in my house, because he left a Great-Pyrenees-head shaped outline on the floor in a mixture of drool and mud that is harder than cement and could be used to cheaply build affordable housing and maybe even roadways.  Even the steam mop can’t get that stuff up without scrubbing!  Also, the drool has found its way onto surfaces you would not expect, such as the microwave door and the top of my front door, thanks to the magic of head shaking, which causes the drool to soar higher than a commercial airliner and with a velocity previously only experienced by jet propelled spacecraft.  And we won’t even talk about what it’s done to the one window ledge where he would peer out if I left him indoors to go out somewhere (one afternoon he figured out how to push part of my fence down  – the shitty one that was already here when I moved in, not the awesome ones I put up myself! – and he went visiting the neighbours across the street, so he lost outside privileges if I wasn’t home to keep an eye on him) – I am pretty sure it’s eating through the wood itself.

However, while Alfie was here I lost exactly zero poultry to aerial predators, while my landlord’s poultry was picked off one by one (I swear he is down to just 5 hens).  And since he has been gone, I have lost two roosters (RIP Paquito), a hen and a duck.  If I could afford to feed an enormous dog, I would get my own LGD, he was very useful that way!  And I know exactly what’s been picking off my birds too.

Can you spot the bugger in my neighbour’s pine tree?

I’m not entirely sure what it is, some kind of eagle I guess.  I kinda wish I could catch it in the act and KICK IT, because that worked for the bald eagle that was stealing my chickens, maybe it would work again!

I still get to see Alfie and Betty three times a week because I hike them – last time I went to pick them up Betty was so excited to see me she pulled me inside the door by the string on my hoodie!  haha – but I miss having Great White around to protect my birds.  But as I say, my dogs were pretty chuffed to have me all to themselves again, when Mini Mama showed up.  TWooie just rolled his eyes in exasperation and hasn’t even bothered to snark at her.

(Happy place, counting to five, whatever)

The border collies were and are oblivious to her presence, because she is not a tennis ball.  Winter tried to play with her and then remembered that he was above playing with her, and now he and Spring are Mean Girls and leave the room when she enters it.  Addy of course made friendly overtures (ie she humped her) right away and remains delightfully pleased to see her all the time.  But Fae … oh Fae.

FIRST, Fae made ugly face at her and stalked around after her with Scorpion Tail, then got pouty and emo when I gave her shit for being a bitch, and lay down in her crate with her face to the wall.  If she were a human teenager she would have The Smiths or something blasting on her iPod whilst laying in her bed with her back to the door.  You know, I don’t need to experience being a human parent, I already own shithead toddlers (Addy), moody teenagers (Fae), and possibly some special needs kids (Dexter, Peetie).

Once she got over her snit, she decided she would make Mini Mama as unnecessary as possible by being The Only Dog I Need.  This afternoon she decided to play with Addy – she NEVER plays with Addy and is a downright bitch when Addy tries to play with her.  But today she was all flirty and trying to entice (a terrified) Addy into playing chase and wrestle – “look at me!  I’m the perfect small dog!  You don’t need anymore small dogs!” – and when that didn’t work, she was all “I’ll chase the ball, as many times as you want!  Don’t throw it for Minnie, throw it for me!”

But.
Whereas Mini Mama did this with the ball when I threw it:

Fae did THIS when she got the ball:

This is not a posed shot.  This is what I turned around to see when I wondered where she and the ball had gotten to.  Look at that stinky side-eye!  Look at that perfect blend of pouty/emo and possessiveness!  She is a master of The Beeyotch!  This is why I both love her and want to put her in the blender at the same time.

But I also love her because she makes photos like this:

And also because when I pretend to toss her a cookie, she makes faces like this:

Peetie also makes pretty pictures, but without the lovable bits.  She has nothing but super irritating bits.

Whereas Dexter has nothing but weird bits.  He is, truly, an odd dog.

Squirrel hunting season is over, and now apparently it’s rabbit hunting season again, so I never see the terriers as they spend all their time thrashing around in the pokies looking for bunnies.  I resent this, because they carry pokies home embedded in their skin and then shed them in my bed, where they become embedded in MY skin.  However, I can distract the terriers temporarily with cookies, at least long enough to get a decent photo of them :)

The Dirt Duo, on the other hand …

Miss Piper, who will be 15 years old in approximately 19 days (and will be exactly 30 years younger than me, which makes me feel old, especially since as of late I realized I cannot read my kindle with both eyes unless I hold it waaaaay far away from my face) has her good days and her bad days.  She has recovered very well from her FCE, except one of her hind legs drags just a little and she falls over very easily so I am forever yelling at the other dogs to stop banging into her.  She can’t come hiking anymore though … a couple of weeks ago Michelle and I took all the dogs for a walk out at Pitt Lake and while Piper managed really well, only getting super tired at the last little stretch, she can’t handle being in the car at all.  What started out as some mild anxiety and panting/drooling in the car has morphed into a full blown panic attack complete with thrashing around and screaming.  So her fun-outing days are over, but on the plus side, when we go hiking she gets to stay home with a Kong full of wet Kangaroo food (gross). Although if Peetie KEEPS EATING THE ACTUAL KONGS, that fun pastime will also have been ruined for poor Piper.  Stupid Peetie.

Piper still plays ball though, by which I mean she totters around with her own ball in her mouth while the rest of us play fetch, and she is made happy by the illusion that she is playing ball.

And there you have it, you’re all up to date on what’s going on with us!  Now that the weather has mostly turned shitty (we had a couple of lovely days sandwiched between the daily torrential downpours which is now just called The Weather for the next 8 months) there will be less photo-ing of other people’s dogs, and more time for my own.  They are calling for snow this weekend, so I bit the bullet and went and bought snow tires, which I could not afford … but I can afford to not-be-able-to-leave-my-house-because-my-shitty-bald-8-year-old-tires-suck-on-regular-pavement-never-mind-snow-covered-pavement even less :(  I do have two photo projects for this winter lined up, one being my annual Holiday Photos with a *twist* this year that I am really excited about, and one being a project I am working on with rescue that I am also really excited about.  To be successful in the latter venture, I need to master my studio work (which will in part involve selling my current lighting and replacing it with something more suited to my needs – anyone interested in some monolight/strobes?) and to that end, I have begun practicing.  In honour of Halloween, I leave you with this image burned into your brain forever.