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!