Nurse Shirley

Emme has taken on the role of nurse. In the last few days, Rudy has had some digestive upsets and yesterday we discovered that he has some red spots in his ears, probably another ear infection. We have a vet appointment at 9:45 this morning but Emme wants to make sure we know that there is a problem with Rudy. This morning she went up to Rudy as he was lying on the floor next to the dining room table and began sniffing the outside of his ears. She backed up and started whining in a way she hasn't whined before. She would whine, bark and look up at us. It was like she was saying, "There is something wrong here, guys. Fix it." She did this over and over for about four minutes. She didn't like what she was smelling and she was upset about it. It was like she was a school nurse, Nurse Shirley, diagnosing a sick student. Soon, Emme, we will take Rudy to the vet and get him fixed. Thanks for the medical advice.

Yum, Tuna

Emme has discovered tuna and it is GOOD. Rudy has been having some digestive upsets and on the advice of the veterinarian, he is eating boiled rice and canned tuna in water. We began this yesterday at dinner. We gave Rudy rice and tuna and gave Emme about a half teaspoon of tuna on top of her dry kibble. She was enchanted. I have often described Emme as a good, if indifferent eater. Not this time. She gobbled down the tuna and all the dry kibble. Last night at dinner she ate every kibble in her bowl.

Breakfast is usually her lighter meal. She usually will eat a third to a half of her portion and leave the rest. Not this morning. We again put a half teaspoon of tuna on top of her food and she ate all but three pieces of kibble. Wow, who knew tuna was this good?

Sweet Summer Sweat

Emme loves to lick us, especially when we are hot and sweaty. There is nothing she likes better than to jump up on our laps when we are taking a break from gardening. We get a bottle of water and sit on the porch with the overhead fan blowing cool breezes. No sooner have we sat down than a fluffy white dog jumps up on our laps and begins licking. She will lick our hands, fingers, arms and she loves to jump up and lick our necks, ears, and faces. And if we kick off our shoes, heaven! Toes are irresistible. We must taste of summer: sweat, salt, dirt, and sun. Yum, sweet summer sweat.

Back to the Groomer

Emme's groomer has lost her lease at the Wooster shop and I had to make a decision to follow the groomer to her other out of town location or to find a new groomer. I wasn't crazy about making the 25 minute trip, but she is the only groomer who has trimmed Emme and I was reluctant to make a change.

I happen to be a rather loyal customer who doesn't make changes just for the sake of change. I am still going to the same OB-GYN doctor that I went to when I was pregnant with my first son. And he is having his 41st birthday this summer. Actually, the doctor has since retired but I am still going to the same practice. I have vacationed on the same island off the coast of New Jersey each summer since 1970. I have been married to the same man for 42 years. I don't like a lot of change.

So I decided to follow the groomer. It actually worked out fine. She is about 15 minutes away from the outlet mall, and I went shopping while Emme was getting beautiful. I don't know if I will continue when winter comes and the weather gets bad, but for now, we are staying with the same groomer.

Cook's Helpers

I am never without company when I am cooking. Emme and Rudy love to come into the kitchen when I am preparing meals. They lie down on the floor in a good down/stay while I cut, chop, and cook. They love to get tastes of the food I am preparing. I often give them a piece of a vegetable or fruit I am cutting up. They have tasted carrots, green peppers, strawberries, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, celery, apples, and others. They seem to like them all. Emme's favorite for the entertainment factor is cherry tomatoes. She will roll them on the floor, lick them, put them in her mouth and throw them up in the air so she can run after them. After I am done in the kitchen, I give them each a puppy biscuit and then they leave the kitchen and lie down in another room until something else exciting happens.

I Don't Want To Play Fetch

Every morning Emme waits patiently while Ken plays fetch with Rudy in the back yard. Emme has a specific spot she sits on the porch waiting for her turn. She waits and whines, so excited to go outside. When Rudy is done, Ken takes Emme outside to play her version of Fetch. This game consists of Ken throwing the little tennis ball, Emme running over next to it, and stopping to eat grass. She gets next to the ball but doesn't pick it up. Then Ken walks over to where the ball is on the grass, picks it up, and throws it. Emme runs over next to it and eats more grass while she waits for Ken to come over to the ball. This goes on for a few minutes and never varies. This is the game.

We were surprised the last time Eric and Katherine came to visit. Emme knows how to play fetch. She just doesn't want to. When both Eric and Katherine threw the ball inside the house, Emme would run into the other room, grab up the ball and run back to them with the ball. That is a whole different game than she plays with Ken. With Ken it is run next to the ball and eat grass. With Eric and Katherine it is bring the ball back. She can play fetch when SHE wants to.

We Love Tissues

Emme and Rudy both love to grab tissues. For Emme, tissues are cheap entertainment. She will spend a great deal of time (if we don't catch her) tearing them up into a million little pieces and throwing them all over the rug. Rudy likes to eat them. New or used. Old or new. If he finds one, he eats one.

Both of the dogs also love paper towels. If we clean up with a paper towel or use one with food, we need to be extremely careful that we throw it away immediately or it becomes a dog toy or snack. The funny thing is that neither of the dogs is interested in toilet paper. I would think that TP is so similar to tissues and paper towels that the dogs would be attracted to that. But no. Charmin must not be the same as Kleenex. Neither pays the slightest attention to toilet paper. They walk into the bathroom and never bother the toilet paper. I wonder why.

Interior Decorating

Emme has watched too much HGTV. She is in to interior decorating. When she can get into the guest bedroom on the second floor, along with doll wrestling, she pushes the pillows on the floor. She loves to go into the family room and push the four pillows on the couch down on to the floor. This weekend while I was upstairs in my sewing room, she went downstairs and into the living room and cleared all the pillows off the top of the couch there.

When she goes to bed at night, she has to push around the items in her crate. In her crate, her mattress is a standard bed pillow inside a waterproof pillow case, inside a cotton pillow case. She also has a small fleece blanket in there. When she goes to bed, she needs to push them around to fix up her bed for sleep. Recently she has been sleeping under the pillow. We wake up in the morning and find half a little white puppy sticking out from under the pillow. Busy, busy, busy.

Down and Dirty in Holmes County

Emme loves to go to the lake house in Holmes County. She explores in the high grass, eats bugs, plays on the garage floor, finds spider webs, walks on the deck, tumbles in the dry leaves in the perennial garden, sniffs tree trunks, and gets absolutely filthy. The picture above doesn't do her justice. She looked just awful. Rudy probably gets as dirty but with his brown coat, we can't see the dirt.

We decided long ago that it was pointless to try to keep a little fluffy white dog clean at the lake so we just let her go. She gets her mouth dirty, her paws filthy, and collects hundreds of little pieces of "stuff" in her fur. We ride home with her on my lap and I feel like a momma monkey picking little pieces of grass, seeds, twigs, and who knows what out of her fur as we drive back home. The first thing we do when we return to the Wooster house is unpack the refrigerated food and put it away. Then next thing is wash the dirty, grey puppy. When I first bought Emme, I also bought twelve small white towels and six washcloths. We have put them to good use.

Four on the Floor

Emme is still jumping up on us when we return to the house or when she is let out of her crate in the morning. She is so excited to see us, that all training evaporates out of her brain. For a long time, we just ignored the behavior, as recommended in many of the dog books we read. The idea was that the jumping behavior would not get the attention she sought and she would stop doing it. Not so. We would ignore her while she was jumping: no petting, no speaking to her, and even no eye contact. That didn't eliminate the jumping.

So now we are trying another method. On the advice of the trainer, since ignoring the jumping didn't extinguish the behavior, we are telling Emme to sit. She doesn't get any attention until she has obeyed the sit command and has all four paws on the floor, "four on the floor." So now, she jumps once; we say "sit" and she puts four on the floor. Then we pet and talk to her. The minute we stop petting her, she jumps up again. We say "sit" and she puts four on the floor again. Then we pet and talk to her. This can go on three or four times.

She has learned to sit and get petted, but only after she has jumped up on us. I hope we are heading in the right direction with this. She is in no danger of knocking anyone over when she jumps up, but it is just not good manners. She could put muddy paw prints on someone or snag stockings or trousers. She knows what we want, but her enthusiasm gets in the way of her obedience.

Feed Me

Emme has always been a good, if indifferent, eater. She eats a few pieces of kibble, carries a few pieces to the waiting rug to eat them there, comes back to her dish to eat a few more pieces of kibble, goes to get a drink of water, wanders into the living room to make sure she is not missing anything, returns to eat a few more pieces of kibble, etc. This goes on for about 10 minutes until she eats all or most of her meal. Lately, there has been a change. She continues the above process for dinner, but for breakfast, she is not interested in eating anything. Sometimes I can hand feed her two or three kibbles of food, but then she is done and she lies down on the waiting rug. Ken has started picking her up on his lap and hand feeding her kibble. She doesn't eat it all, but she does eat some on Ken's lap. I wonder if she is telling us that she only wants to eat one meal a day or if she is just enjoying the attention of having Ken hand feed her. If only puppies came packaged with an instruction manual.

Emme and Rudy can S-P-E-L-L

Emme and Rudy both know many words. They know, among others, sit, down, come, leave it, no, eat, food, treat, ride, walk, come, hurry up, outside, in, upstairs, bed, home. Until now, they didn't know how to spell. Every night one of us says to the other, "Do you think it is time for bed?" That is the signal for the dogs to run to the kitchen for one last hurry up before going upstairs. Recently we have been really slick and spelled B-E-D to fool the dogs. That didn't last long. Last night Ken said to me, "B-E-D?" and both dogs jumped up to go to bed. Now they know how to spell!

Peanuts

Last night, Ken and I were playing with our new coffee maker in the kitchen when he looked into the living room and noticed Emme helping herself to some peanuts left in a dish on a table next to one of the recliner chairs. Although she loves peanut butter in her Kong as a special treat, she has never encountered a whole peanut. As a matter of fact, one time we put extra chunky peanut butter in her Kong instead of the usual creamy and she licked all the peanut butter off the peanut chunks and left them inside her Kong. We are not sure if she was actually eating the peanuts last night or if she was just smelling them and licking the salt off of them. No matter. She was into something she should not have been, but it was our mistake leaving them within her reach. With a puppy anything is fair game and it is up to us to keep things out of her reach. I guess last night it was puppy, 1, adults, 0.

Ice is Nice

Both Emme and Rudy love ice cubes as treats. When I am working in the kitchen, Emme and Rudy dash to the kitchen and do a "down/stay." Rudy goes down and stays down for as long as I am working. I can even go to the back porch or the mailbox and he stays down on the kitchen floor waiting for me. Emme, on the other hand, knows good things come from lying down on the kitchen floor. She doesn't have the staying power that Rudy has so she is up and down a dozen times as I prepare a meal. During one of the down times, I like to catch her doing it right and I say "Good dogs. Good down/stay." Then I give them a treat: a puppy biscuit, carrot, cherry tomato, piece of vegetable or ice. Rudy chomps right down on the ice and Emme licks hers, throws it up in the air and pounces on it, or waits. Sooner or later Rudy will drop a chip of ice from the ice cube he is chewing. Emme would rather have that. It is small and has Rudy spit on it. What a treat! Go figure.

First Bone

Emme had a fresh bone for the first time last weekend and she loved it. We had a family picnic at the lake house on Memorial Day weekend and I thought a bone for each dog would keep them busy and out of the way.

We have always been very careful about giving bones to Rudy. One of the books we read when we first got Rudy was Daniel Pinkwater's Super Puppy. He cautions to use no bones except beef femur bones because all others shatter. I go to the market and ask for beef femur bones with the joints cut off and the middle of the bone cut into 3 to 6 inch pieces. The meat department does not always carry these so I sometimes need to check a few times until they are available. I think people use them for soup, so they are more available in the cold weather, fall and winter. Then I take them home and boil them for 20 minutes, as recommended in the Pinkwater book, to kill any bacteria and to make the bones more dense. I wrap each in foil and put them in the freezer until I want to give one to Rudy.

Emme has never had a fresh bone. They have marrow in the middle and a small amount of meat on the outside. For this reason, I like to give them to Rudy on the porch or in the garage so nothing gets on the rugs. After he has chewed them for a while, they are clean and can come into the house. These old bones last about forever. Some of the bones Rudy has are two years old. Rudy and Emme both love to pick one up and chew on the bone.

I have had some bones prepared and waiting in the freezer since last fall and brought two of them to the lake last weekend. It was a rainy day so we set up the big table in the garage for lunch. I gave a fresh bone to both Emme and Rudy who cheerfully chewed for hours while we were eating and visiting. It didn't take Emme a minute to figure out what she had and to begin to chew. There didn't seem to be a trouble with ownership of the bones. Periodically, they would switch bones and chew on that bone for a while before switching back. The combination of the greasy bone marrow and the garage floor turned our white puppy into an awful, dirty, but happy, grey puppy. It was a shame that I didn't have my camera with me then. She was so dirty that she needed to ride home on Eric's lap on top of a beach towel. As soon as she got home, I gave her a bath and our clean white puppy made a return appearance.

Rudy brought one of the bones back to the Wooster house and Emme is still in love with it. This morning Emme was chewing on the bone and decided to find a comfortable place to chew. Of course she selected the neighborhood watch couch. She sat on the couch on top of a pillow and proceeded to chew contentedly. Emme likes bones.

My Fault

I set Emme up for failure this morning. The morning began slowly and quietly. Emme and I slept in until almost 7 AM. After we fed the dogs, Ken and I had a leisurely breakfast: many cups of coffee, two newspapers, and lots of conversation. After breakfast we decided to go outside, Ken to mow, me to pull the never-ending weeds. As I always do, I opened the door from the kitchen to the porch so the dogs could see us as we worked.

Both Emme and Rudy came out onto the porch to watch us. We really got busy working hard outside and I completely lost track of the time. Suddenly I heard a bark of alarm from the porch. I looked at my watch and I realized that it had been a long time since I had taken the puppy outside to do her business and she must have needed to go. By the time I put down my tools and got back to the porch, Emme had made a puddle right in front of the door. This is the first time in months that has happened.

This incident reinforces that training a puppy is really training the owner. I set her up for failure by not taking her outside in a timely manner. When she needs to go outside she whines by the door and I am sure that I could not have heard it from the garden. Oh, well, we will do better next time.

Puffs Plus

I bet when Procter and Gamble make tissues, they don't know how versatile Puffs Plus are. In addition to their use for personal hygiene, they can be a dog toy or even a dog snack.

Rudy has been in love with tissues as long as we have had him. He loves them, clean or used, and he EATS them. He will go through waste baskets to find them, snatch them off of end tables, and even root in pockets to try to find a tissue.

This morning, Emme was not with me in my sewing room when I was checking my email. That was most unusual because she is almost always within my arm's reach. If she is not with me, she may be with Ken but today he was already gone for the day before I went upstairs. When I went to look for Emme, she was in our bedroom, beside our bed, with a pile of moist shredded tissue pieces all over the rug. It is amazing how many pieces she could make out of one tissue. I don't know where she got it. She must have pulled one out of a waste basket or off the night stand. She didn't eat it, but it was a wonderful dog toy. Fun!

Neighborhood Watch

Emme takes her responsibilities seriously as part of neighborhood watch. The problem is her definition of neighborhood. It extends as far as she can see: the neighbor's yards, the golf course, and the houses on the next street. She is vigilant in letting us know if there are people out there. She not only guards her yard but everyone's yards. Often her alert starts with the "rolling growl" where she goes "rarrr, rarr, rarr" deep in her throat. If that doesn't scare the intruder, she goes into full Doberman mode: big barks and dashing from the front window to the window in Ken's office or the back door. I am not sure why. She must think that she can get a better view from somewhere else. When that doesn't work, she dashes back to the couch in front of the living room window. A command of "quiet" and a spray from the plant mister are often necessary to regain peace in the house. No intruders are going to surprise us.

Back to Good Health

Rudy went to the vet yesterday and is now taking antibiotics for the kennel cough. Both he and Emme are now on medicines and seem to be getting better by the day. Both seem to cough more first thing in the morning but the cough seems to be lessening as the day goes on. Rudy is not throwing up like he was before. It is about time. I am getting tired of playing Nurse Shirley or the equivalent in the canine world. We have spent a few quiet days on easily cleaned up surfaces and we are all ready to get life back to normal. I am so thankful for medicines that can restore the dogs to health. Seeing them sick is not fun.

A Quiet Memorial Day

We spent a purposefully quiet Memorial Day yesterday. Rudy was still coughing and any activity made it worse. Because he would often gag and throw up, we kept the dogs in the kitchen and on the back porch. The floors there are solid surfaces and much easier to clean up. We put the baby gates up and spent the day reading, resting, and wiping up dog spit. Emme is doing well on her medicine and only wheezes very occasionally. She hasn't been doing the throwing up that Rudy has. Rudy has a 10:15 appointment with the vet this morning, so I am sure that very soon he will be getting better. He is coughing and throwing up much less today so both dogs are with me upstairs in the sewing room. I am hoping that by this time tomorrow, all this will be a fading memory.

Kennel Cough

Rudy now has kennel cough. He began coughing yesterday which was Sunday and is coughing a lot today which, of course, is Memorial Day. It will be tomorrow before we can get him to the vet's for some antibiotics to kick this. Although both dogs were vaccinated against kennel cough, bordatella, I understand that only provides partial protection. Kennel cough is composed of a group of related strains, like the common cold or flu, and the vaccination only covers some of the strains. If the kennel cough they get exposed to is different than the ones in the vaccination, they will catch it. Which both Emme and Rudy did. Emme is doing fine on the antibiotics she got last week and I am sure that tomorrow morning when Rudy gets medication, he will do well also. We are planning a quiet day because activity exacerbates the coughing. We plan to be quiet and low key so Rudy will stay still and cough less. I hope it works.

We had guests for the weekend. Our son and daughter-in-law came from Washington DC to help pack up Grandma and Grandpa for their move next week to an independent living unit. The dogs loved seeing them again and even Emme seemed to remember them from their last visit. It has been since Christmas that they were in Ohio but both dogs started out right where they left off at the last visit: playing, being petting, licking toes, sitting on laps, wrestling and all those activities they love to do with friends. It is amazing what dogs remember.

A Visit to the Vet

While Emme and Rudy were at the kennel last week, they were exposed to kennel cough. We were sent home with a warning sheet and two pages of information from the Internet about kennel cough, bordatella. While Emme and Rudy were at the kennel, a dog began coughing; they took it to the vet, and it was diagnosed with kennel cough. We were told to watch for signs of coughing or wheezing.

Thursday Emme began to wheeze and at the first wheeze, Ken called the vet and made an appointment for Friday morning. Emme did not cough or wheeze much at all day Thursday and I was considering canceling the appointment, but she began wheezing again Friday morning so I took her in. The vet said that she looked fine and had only mild symptoms. He gave her a shot of antibiotics and a week's worth of antibiotic pills to take at home. I am glad that I kept the appointment. I would rather be over cautious, than let something go that could turn serious. Now we just need to keep watching Rudy to make sure he doesn't show any symptoms.

Don't Look at Her

This spring, when Emme started licking her feet constantly, the vet said it was probably an allergy to pollen. We have been giving her a half tablet of an antihistamine and have been washing her feet when she comes in from walking on dew covered grass in the early morning and late at night. Of course we have a system: I fill a little bowl with oatmeal shampoo and warm water and Ken holds Emme. I cut a kitchen sponge in quarters and use the little sponges to wash off the tops and bottoms of Emme's paws. While I am washing off her paws and later drying them, Emme will not look at me. She sits absolutely quietly in Ken's arms, but she turns her head to the side and looks away. It is so obvious that she is trying not to look at me. What is this about? After I have washed off all four paws, then I change the water and rinse off her paws. She still looks away. She has to turn her head all the way to the side to avoid looking at my face. She is very intentional about this. When all her paws are rinsed off with clear water, I take a towel and dry them off. She still does not look at me. Only when I say "All done" does she look at me as she is getting ready to jump down from Ken's arms. She doesn't seem to mind having her feet washed, but part of her system is not looking at me. Oh, well.

Doll Wrestling

Emme is very good about staying off of the beds. Only one time previously, she jumped up on our bed after we had gotten up in the morning and before we made the bed. She settled down happily in between our two pillows and was as happy as she could be. I told her to get off and she has not tried that again.

Recently, however, we have noticed that a cloth doll we keep on the bed in the guest room was in a strange position a few times, and one time was on the floor. We knew that it wasn't Rudy, because Rudy never gets up on any furniture including the beds. That only left Emme as the culprit, but we hadn't seen her on the bed. The door to the guest room is usually closed so access is limited, but we go in and out frequently and the door must have been left ajar a few times. Recently, when I was hanging up my costume for National First Ladies in the guest room closet, I turned around and Emme was on top of the bed, wrestling with the doll. I told her, sternly, "Off" and she jumped down looking properly chagrined. I am sure, however, that isn't the end and if the opportunity presents itself, Emme may again be doll wrestling.

Back From Puppy Camp Again

Emme and Rudy spent the weekend at Doggy Sleep Away Camp while we were in New Jersey at my sister's. My niece just graduated with her RN in nursing and her boy friend completed a degree in respiratory therapy. My sister gave them a grand party as a graduation recognition and a send off to their new lives in the south. We had a great time and Emme and Rudy went to camp.

We picked them up first thing this morning and since then, we have had Velcro dogs. They are sticking really close; they are never more than a few inches away from one of us. As soon as things had settled down, Rudy got his really big lovey and Emme got a bone and things started to get back to normal.

While we were gone, I got an email from Darlene, Emme's breeder. Her twelve Bichons have been chosen to be on Cleveland's Fox News 2008 calendar. She said that the photographer took 400 pictures of individual dogs, small groups of dogs and a total of 60 photos of all twelve dogs to get just one for the calendar. She sent a link to see the process of photographing twelve dogs: http://www.photographingsquirrels.com/12puppies/

It is really funny to see how they posed the dogs for the pictures. And to think I fuss about the difficulty of taking pictures of one dog.

I Love My Tail

Isn't it lucky that puppies come with built in toys? Emme thinks her tail is fascinating and loves to play with it. She often naps with her tail in her mouth. She lies on her back and then curls around to catch the end of her tail in her mouth. She often will lie there for many minutes, just resting with her tail in her mouth.

In case you can't understand the photo: Emme is lying on her back with her back two feet closest to the camera and her belly sticking up. Her front feet are bent over her chest. She is leaning over to the left and has the end of her tail in her mouth. Heaven!

Who's the Alpha Dog?

As strong-willed as Emme is, I often think she believes that she is the alpha dog in the household. She likes to be in charge. She doesn't like to be rolled over on her back unless she says so. She will often eat out of Rudy's food dish as he is trying to eat a meal. She thinks nothing of stealing a toy from him. She knows when we should nap and if I tarry at the lunch table, she jumps on the family room couch, pushes around the pillows and barks for someone to come join her. If she wants attention and Ken is busy at his computer, she will whine and then jump up into his lap to be petted.

But recently Emme has begun to wait to eat until Rudy is completely finished his meal. She will usually lie down on the waiting rug in the kitchen until Rudy has eaten his entire meal and he has had his after dinner medicine. Only then, will she go to her dish to eat her kibble. I have read that the alpha dog always eats first and the other dogs in the pack instinctively know to wait to eat until he/she is done. I wonder if Emme considers Rudy the alpha dog because of his size and age.

Ken and I both think we are the alpha dogs. When Emme and I are having a battle of the wills, I tell her, "I am bigger than you and more stubborn than you and you are going to do it my way." I wonder who really is the alpha dog of this household.

Allergy Update

When Emme began chewing on her feet a week or so ago, we took her to the vet who thought it was the result of allergies to the high pollen count, and prescribed an antihistamine, Chlorpheniramine, I think. The handwriting on the pill envelope is difficult to read. He prescribed a half a 4 mg tablet twice a day for ten days. If that worked, he said they we could keep her on the antihistamine whenever the pollen count was high and she was itching. For the first few days, we gave Emme the tablets, washed and dried her feet in the morning and again at night when she went out on dew covered grass, but saw little improvement. After about five days, however, she stopped chewing on her feet and has not started chewing again. So we have gotten another 30 days of the antihistamine. We will keep her on it until the first day of summer and then for about a week, we will give her only one dose a day and then discontinue. If the foot chewing reoccurs, we know what to do in the future. I don't like putting chemicals into her body, but I like the foot chewing less. We will continue with the medication until she no longer needs it.

Garden Helper

Emme loves to eat anything in the yard or garden. She goes outside to do her business and has to smell every blade of grass in the back yard. She plays ball in the backyard with Ken. This consists of Ken throwing the ball and Emme running up next to the ball and eating the grass around it. Invariably when she goes outside, she returns to the house with a little stick, a piece of bark, or a chunk of mulch in her mouth. Notice in this picture, the weed in her mouth. I was trying to take a picture of her by the rhododendrons and she was eating weeds. Typical.

Emme and the Rhodies

Happy Mother's Day!

I never realized how hard it is to take good puppy photographs. I see a million cute dog pictures in magazines, calendars, and on cards. I don't know how they take those pictures. All those dogs have to be stuffed. For every good photo I get, I take a dozen. Most of the pictures have a head turned, a puppy walking away, half a body or some other awful composition. Thank heaven for digital photos. I can take many pictures and delete the (many) that are no good. I have a new found respect for animal photographers.