Lucky Gets His Picture Taken

In order to find a home for a foster dog, you need a good picture of the dog. Many times people will be looking on websites when they’re thinking about adopting, and when someone is faced with pictures of several hundred dogs looking for homes, they will usually skip over the pictures that are blurry, too far away, or otherwise unattractive. I’m not a good photographer by any means, so I usually have to take dozens of pictures just to get a usable one. In Lucky’s case, his online listing still has pictures taken at the shelter he was in before I got him, even though they were taken when he was much younger, just because I have yet to get any good pictures of him. It’s not due to a lack of trying. It’s not even due to camera shyness on his part. I believe it’s due to his idea of a great big joke.

Deaf dogs can be a challenge to take pictures of sometimes, because you can’t make noises to get them to look at the camera. But after taking a few dozen pictures of Lucky while waving at him to get his attention, I finally realized he was only looking intently at the ground whenever I held up the camera and waved.


"I'll just pretend to be sniffing this blade of grass."



"Here she comes with that camera again.  Time for more sniffing."

 Some dogs will sniff the ground as a distraction when they are nervous.  This is called "displacement behavior" and basically they ignore whatever is happening that is making them nervous and focus on sniffing the ground, or another behavior instead.  But I didn't think that's what Lucky was doing.  He showed no other signs of being nervous or unsure, and seemed to think it was a game to look down whenever I tried to get his attention. 

I decided perhaps an action shot would be a better choice. But somehow he managed to run around the yard, playing with Sophie the St. Bernard, without ever once showing his face to the camera.

"Let's run THIS direction!"


In fact, he’d turn practically in mid-air, just to run the opposite direction when he saw me with the camera.


"Here she comes!  Reverse!  Reverse!"

 Finally I realized what was going on.  Like many deaf dogs, Lucky had learned that looking away from a person was a great way to be able to do whatever he wanted without getting in trouble.  After all, he couldn't "hear" me if he didn't see me giving him a hand sign to stop playing, so as long as he didn't look at me, he could keep playing!

I generally don't have this problem with deaf dogs, because I teach them to look at me often - basically to "check in" with me so we don't have this problem.  Usually a dog that is acting this way is one who has been made to do things he didn't want too often, and didn't get enough rewards for doing good things.  So I teach them by giving them big rewards when they do look at me.  Treats, attention, petting, whatever they enjoy, and then I send them right back to what they were enjoying doing in the first place.  This way they learn to look for me on a regular basis when playing with another dog, or before digging in the garden, or whatever else they might be doing.  And mostly they get rewarded and get sent back to continue, but those times when play time is over, or the digging is starting, it's easy to get their attention and redirect them to something else.  Lucky probably didn't know this in his first home, and it may have contributed to why his original owner gave him up - because they got tired of constantly trying to get Lucky's attention and make him do things.  So I'm going to be teaching Lucky that being obedient and "checking in" pays off, but in the meantime, he may not want to look at me when he's doing something fun and fears he'll be forced to stop. 

WARNING: The following photos may be offensive to some. View at your own risk.


So at this point I just waited for him to get tired.  When he was standing in the middle of the yard, alone, with nowhere to hide, I tried again to take his picture. As I waited for the camera to auto-focus, then snapped the picture, this is what I ended up with:

"Excuse me, a little privacy here please?"

Hey, at least he’s finally looking at the camera. I waited a few minutes and decided to try again. Once again, I caught him looking at the camera, but once again it was not quite a pose I could send in to the pet adoption websites.


"That's right, this is MY ball!"

 At this point I gave up and decided that perhaps a video would be a better choice. At first Lucky did his best to run out of the camera range, but then Sophie told him to stop running and start behaving. He tried to convince her that running would be more fun, but eventually he realized she would not change her mind, so he gave up and walked away.

I may never get a good picture of Lucky, but I will keep trying!

Introducing Dora

Dora is a three year old Black Lab/Border Collie mix.  She came from a rural shelter, and was heartworm positive.  She's been in another foster home while undergoing treatment for heartworms, and once her treatment was complete she came to my house so she could start going to adoption events.

Big black dogs like Dora are often difficult to place.  I expected to have her for awhile.  But at her very first adoption event last weekend, she was a big hit.  Although she didn't find a home, she did get a lot of attention.  So when we had the chance to attend another event during the week, I took Dora along with Chloe the pit bull, Jefferson the Shepherd mix, and Midnight the cat.  Again Dora was very popular, and by the end of the event she had an application for adoption!

Dora is now in her new home, and doing very well.  She was only here for a week, and it was great to find a perfect home for her so quickly.

Although Jefferson and Chloe did not have so much luck getting adopted, they will hopefully soon find new homes thanks to a photographer from Shelter Me Photography.  She took photos of both dogs at the mid-week event, and hopefully that will get them some attention when people are looking at dogs on the adoption sites online.

Chloe

Jefferson

Ziggy and the Photo Shoot

I decided I needed some new pictures of Ziggy for the adoption website and Ziggy's Fan Page, so at the last adoption event I took some photos of Ziggy wearing his "Adopt Me" bandana. The photo shoot went something like this.

Ziggy looks the wrong direction and ignores me for awhile.

I decide to wait him out.


Ziggy turns around but refuses to open his eyes.

More waiting on my part.


Ziggy sits down in order to better show off his stomach muscles.

I think about going home and doing some situps.


I move to the side and Ziggy tilts his head in a pose that would be adorable if he would stop closing his eyes.

I pretend to ignore him so he'll open his eyes again.


He gets up and walks away.

I use the opportunity to fix his bandana so people can actually read it. I wonder if that will encourage anyone to actually adopt him.


I back up and snap a quick photo before he has time to get his eyes completely closed.

I celebrate the possibility that I may finally have a useable picture.


Ziggy sits back down and closes his eyes again.

I wait.


He then lays down and continues to keep his eyes closed.

I contemplate taking a quick nap.


Ziggy then opens his eyes and I take another quick photo before he can move.

I decide the pictures are good enough and end the photo shoot.


Ziggy is rewarded for his excellent  mediocre less than enthusiastic performance with a trip to the Super Storm Drain.

Headless Duke

I'm still learning how to work my new camera, and in the meantime I often get blurry pictures.  But lately I've noticed I've taken a lot of pictures of Duke without a head. 

I'd be embarrassed about this, except that I can't recall any of my other dogs ever losing their heads in photographs.  But time and time again, I look at the pictures I've taken of Duke only to find his head is missing. 

I'm not sure why this is.  Even when the picture is blurry, the other dogs still have heads.  Blurry heads, but they're definitely there.  But not Duke. 

So I decided to help him out.  The headless photos you saw above were not edited.  These following photos are edited, and Duke now has a head! 

And because that was so much fun, I decided to make it more interesting. 

What can I say - I'm easily entertained.

Puppy Photography

Anyone remember this puppy? I fostered her for just a few short days, and quickly fell in love.

She had several littermates, all Min-Pin/Pug mixes like her.

I saw one of her littermates at PetSmart, where she was waiting for her first obedience class to start. I asked the owners if I could take a few pictures of her since her foster mom wasn’t there that week to see her. They kindly said yes – and even more kindly, they didn’t give me any weird looks or make any comments when I proceeded to sit down on the floor in the middle of PetSmart and photograph their dog for 15 minutes.

In my defense, it is very difficult to photograph a quick-moving object like this little puppy. And she is very little – the only way to get a good photo was to practically lie down on the floor. That is why I always try to wear old clothes to PetSmart – because you never know when a tiny puppy is going to come in and you will need to lie on the floor and take their picture.

Blogging

I've made some new friends since I started writing this blog.  It's great to find other people out there with similar interests, and to read about their lives as well.  Here are some of the interesting people I've met through my blog:

Amanda - she lives in Minnesota, and she takes the best pictures ever.  I love this picture she took of her son at Halloween with her dog and two foster dogs.  She's also super-nice and gave me some photography hints and encouragement.  She fosters pit bulls, and has an adorable son.  You can visit her blog here.

Ellen - she is the founder of the St. Louis Senior Dog Project, and she finds homes for senior dogs like Sara.  Sara lived most of her life chained up outdoors in North Dakota, but thanks to Ellen and many other volunteers, Sara is now in a wonderful home.  Ellen takes in the senior dogs that many others give up on, and does an amazing job finding them homes.  It's great to hear about others in the St. Louis area that I may have never known about if it weren't for the Internet and blogging.  You can read more from Ellen's blog here. 

Sara - This time Sara is the human, and Layla is the dog.  I just checked out Sara's blog today when she left a recent comment on one of my blog posts, and I am very impressed (and jealous).  Not only has she adopted and then helped a dog with a lot of issues, but she also does all those things that interest me (dog training, obedience, rally, agility, etc) that I never seem to find time for.  You can check out her blog here.

 



And I would be remiss if I did not include my friends Angie and Rhonda.  I did not meet them through blogging, but they both write excellent blogs about rescue and they have become good friends of mine.

Angie not only inspired me to start this blog by reading hers, but she has always continued to give me help with rescue questions and photography questions. She's a professional photographer and puts up with my questions like "if I am using a lens that doesn't have a zoom, do I actually have to MOVE to take the picture?"  Seriously, I asked her this on Saturday, and not only did she not laugh at me, but she assured me that yes, I did actually have to move the camera and there was no secret button I didn't know about.  You can read her blog here.

Rhonda is one of the best writers I've ever met.  I always look forward to seeing new posts on her blog.  She's also an awesome photographer, and another crazy rescuer like me who takes care of too many dogs and cats, and loves every minute of it.  You can view her blog here.

Introducing Essie; Art

One more new cat - Essie was adopted out a few months ago but due to unfortunate circumstances, her family had to return her.  Essie is such a sweet cat - she just fits right into my crazy household.  She made friends with Merlin and Gandalf, and she even seems to like the dogs.

 

I don't get how to work my camera.  I really need to take a class or something.  Otherwise I end up with weird pictures.  In the picture above, Essie almost looks orange.  In the picture to the left, she almost looks white.  I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually change colors, so it must be the photographer.  Maybe if I paid more attention to what settings I was using instead of just randomly saying "let's try this", I would know how I end up with these odd pictures.

Take these picture of Merlin, for example.  The one on the right looks normal.  But then I randomly changed my camera settings to something - no idea what - and got the one on the left.  It almost looks like some cool artist shot - like the bizarre colors were purposely done that way.  I kind of like it. 

Which gave me an idea.  I don't usually edit my photos.  That's for professional photographers and people with more time on their hands.  I prefer to give you the SOOC shot (straight out of camera), because I'm just lazy.  But since the colors in this photo are messed up anyway, I thought I'd try it in black and white.

I like it.  What do you think?

New Camera

I have become more interested in photography recently, and just bought my first digital SLR camera. Basically this is a fancier version of a point-n-shoot camera like the one I used to use, and it will let me use more manual settings to get more interesting photos. Unfortunately until I figure out how to work it, the majority of my pictures are going to turn out blurry. This camera really makes me appreciate the awesome photography of my other blogging friends. I can safely say their awesome pictures are due to the photographer's skill, not the camera. I hope with some practice my picture-taking abilities will get better. And in the meantime, you'll see a lot more pictures on my blog as I practice using the new camera.

Remi, my 3-year-old Great Dane

This is Hobbes, one of my foster puppies. He looks sad to me in this picture. It's those Basset eyes. They just look pathetic. It's hard to foster a puppy with Basset eyes without constantly taking them into your arms and giving them attention.

Yesterday Hobbes finally caught up with his brother Calvin and learned how to go down the stairs! Now they can both run up and down stairs with the big dogs to go outside, and with their little short legs, its pretty funny to watch!

This is my husband Dave with Noelle. She looooooves him so much. And he feels the same about her. They're so much alike. He likes to sleep late, and so does she. He likes to watch movies, and so does she. She can't wait to greet him every time he comes home, and he smiles every time he sees her. When she wakes up and he's not there, she runs from room to room until she finds him. I think she might be his best friend. I'm only a little bit jealous.