Trip to Kona's

After a very hot summer, we finally got our dog June Bug together with her bud Kona the Boxer. He lives about 15 minutes away in country near Mount Horeb, WI with HIS bud's, Denise and Bernie.

The dogs had a very nice, cool morning to wrestle, explore the woods, wrestle in the house, chase a cat, wrestle under the table, hunt, and wrestle. Did I mention there was some wrestling? I didn't shoot any of that but got some of the exploring. In the above photo, June Bug is de-mousing the wood pile. She found one but it escaped.

Raspberries, right?

WRONG. These are actually immature blackberries. Good guess though...

June Bug exploring alone...

Not happy with just looking around, JB decided that it would be fun to transport around about 3,000 tiny burr's. She managed to get them in her ears, on her entire left side, collar, on my clothes, and on my camera strap.

Sticky stuff.

Mr. Toad decided to bail out of the yard while he could.

After a quick romp in a nearby stream, JB is cornered by Rose and Denise for a toweling off and a de-burring session which was partially successful. 

Argggh.

Me trying to brush some of the burrs off. Kona cleverly opted for a short hair coat that doesn't pick up those things.

One of Denise's pur-ty flowers.

We had a nice morning and one tired pup today. JB is looking forward to seeing her friend Kona real soon!

The end!

2011? What the...?

Wow. THAT was a quick end to the year. I haven't even posted any dog pics from the fall yet! Guess I'd better get busy since we're only a few hours away from the new year. First up:

Dear Abby

Abby happens to live about 4 blocks from me so I had a real short commute. She's a black lab/Visalia combo and she's quite a jumper. This deer dog is capable of clearing 5 foot fences which is pretty amazing.  Needless to say, we did most of the photo shoot in the safety of the walled back yard. We also did some nice shots in her house as well as on the nearby bike path.

Abby is supervised by Monica, who demonstrated some of Abby's skills while I clicked away. We had a nice fall day - around 75 degrees - which seems like a lifetime away as I currently stare out at a yard full of snow.

Abby was a great subject! She sat when we asked her to as well as laid down, jumped, walked, and about anything else you could think of. We had a fun afternoon!

Thanks Abby!

Lab Work

Dogs Cali and Carson live near Columbus, WI - about a 30 minute drive from Madison. They've got a pretty good gig going on up there - big yard, indoor/outdoor heated kennel with radio, etc. Sudha and Erik are their owners who get to live with them but first, a little about each of the dogs...

Cali is a smallish, female Black Labrador who is a recovering ACL surgery recipient. She's a tennis ball fanatic who really likes to have one handy at all times in case a game of fetch breaks out. Sadly, fetch is only allowed while swimming because of the recent surgery and we've got no water today. Cali is your typical friendly Lab who likes to lead the pack on walks and oversees the household from her perch at the top of the stairs. She was the only dog in the house un-til...

...big Carson joined the family about a year ago. He's is a jumbo sized (120 pound) yellow Lab who is just a lovable, goofy giant. Sudha describes Carson as the "dog equivalent of (husband) Erik" and sure enough, Erik shows up wearing a yellow shirt for our photo session.  Carson likes his tug-of-war ring better than the tennis ball but he also had ACL surgery so we don't get too rough today.

After a morning of exploring the big yard, the deck, and going for a short walk, it was time to check out the house. When you walk in the door, you are greeted by a HUGE moose head mounted on the wall. I really wanted to work him into some shots of the dogs (and later, cats) but I couldn't figure out a way to overcome the height difference. No matter, the dogs were gracious enough to be good hosts and pose in their normal hang outs for me.

A couple of cats (including "Moo" pictured above) share the house with C & C so I got a little cat photography practice in. Our summer morning together ended with each dog getting a delicious (I'm assuming) doggie ice cream. I wouldn't know what they taste like...I wasn't offered one. :)

Thanks to Sudha, Erik, Carson, Cali and miscellaneous cats for a very fun morning in the country!
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Beam me up...

Here's a photo shoot from spring that hasn't be "blogged" yet. A pair of Scotties from Madison who are a little on the...shall we say, rambunctious side. Oh sure, they are very cute and manicured in the pictures. Just wait till you see the pictures at the end.

Grady (the off-white one) and Gregor (the really off-white one) were very polite when I came to the door. They greeted me and my dog-scented camera bag with lots of sniffing. After a short meet-n-greet it was off to their highly manicured backyard for some ball wrangling, rabbit sniffing, and general mischief.

I don't know the breed very well, my previous experience with Scotties was when I was bitten in the leg by one when I was six, so I was given a short tutorial by their mom, Nancy. Apparently, they have the same size teeth as a German Shepherd. I highly doubted that was true until Nancy lifted opened the mouth of Gregor and exposed....GIANT GERMAN SHEPHERD TEETH! I feel sorry for any burrowing animal that has the misfortune of being trapped in a hole with one of these things coming at you. The other tidbit of info about the breed I learned was that you can lift this breed by their sturdy tail which comes in quite handy when you need to move this portable dog. (Warning - never pull or lift any dog by their tail! Nancy is a "breed expert" and knows how to do this.)

After our trip outside, I got to see the inside version of these guys. That included wrestling with the empty dog food bag, a short trip through the Scottie museum in Nancy's house, and a visit by the UPS guy. Remember my warning at the beginning of this?

The chairs (yes, these were upholstered chairs at one point) serve as a substitute item to attack since the dogs aren't able to go after visiting bad guys - in this case, played by the UPS guy. The chairs sit in the living room to serve as a warning to delivery people everywhere that these guys mean business!

Fortunately, photographers are not on their "bad guy" list and I was allowed to pass without injury. I just feel sorry for the guy who was to delivery the pictures to Nancy.

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