Art

Dog Blog Post #253:Aaaaaak! Fell asleep on the sofa with Henry Blanket (oh, so warm and snuggly) and now must hurry...

Today's Daily Shoot Assignment:

What kind of other art do you appreciate? Make a photograph that celebrates it today.

Embroidery? Quilting? Drawing?

I'm not sure the first two "qualify" and I haven't done the third in years (sigh) but my mom is a true artist, and I definitely admire and appreciate her work! Years ago she painted a semi-abstract picture of my dear, sweet "once in a lifetime" kitty. Kitty passed some years ago to the rainbow bridge, but the painting, and the memories it represents, will stay with me forever...

So out comes the ex-pen in a semi-circle, painting was leaned up against one side (perfect fit between two panels stretched straight!), non-stretchy (cheap) black fabric on the ground like a drop-cloth, and a new plum fabric along the other side to create a solid "wall".

Tried both dogs, but together they took up too much room and blocked the painting, so I used them one at a time.

The camera was on the big tripod, using a 10 second timer. That gave me just enough time to push the button, run around behind the "set" (outside ex-pen, behind painting) and look over the painting, get the dog down and set, then tap my fingers on the back of the painting (through the ex-pen) to get him to look "at" the painting.

Zachary was by far the better actor (no surprise) and picked up what I wanted after the first shot. I took just three, and ultimately went with the second shot. I took about six of Henry, who took so long to get settled each time that I didn't have time to "tune" his head to the right spot (for the Missing Skill of the Day award.)

And that's that!

As for Wordless Wednesday's (yesterday's) Daily Shoot assignment:

Find a repeating pattern today and make a photograph of it.

I had a bit of fun with that one. :)

The eye-bending spotted fabric is the "fur" fabric that I normal throw over the dog pillow, thrown over the backboard instead. The lovely purple bandanas came home with the boys from the day spa.

The rather loud pink and purple print was from the discount bin at the fabric store. $5 per yard! Alas, it's shimmery (not good) and it wrinkles (even worse) so after a batch of bad shots, I smushed it together across the top of the backboard to create soft drapes, and titled it "Prom Night".  :)

I could probably write a whole post waxing on about fabrics, but you're in luck, I'm out of time!

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Wordless Wednesday - Repeating Patterns

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Trick 9 and Daily Shoot

Dog Blog Post #251: At last, the trick you have all been waiting for! The trick I promised you a few weeks ago but have yet to deliver on. Ladies and Gentleman - in the Center (and only!) ring we present...

Jump (over another dog)

Much like last week, the problem with this trick wasn't that the parts were hard. One dog lays down, the other jumps over the first. No worries, right?

Wrong.

Not only do we have the "which hand is my hand?" problem (see Trick 8 - Tandem Spin) but now we have the dogs doing different things -and- one is in motion while the other is not.

What was I thinking???

In the end, I think this trick - especially coming on the heals of Tandem Spin - will greatly aid our photography efforts. This reinforces that the dogs should pay attention to "their" hand, as well as that just because your bud is moving, doesn't mean you should be as well.

Note that Zachary is taking on the much harder role here. Yes, I know that it appears like he is just lying there, but trust me, lying around Doing Nothing is (a) extremely counterintuitive to Zachary (b) not nearly as much fun as jumping over something and (c) makes one prone to being hit on the head by their klutzy compatriot.

(Sorry Zach!)

So, how did I teach this? The first part was to get the dogs to focus on the correct hands. That meant feeding Zachary treats from my left hand (held low and out of view of the camera) while feeding Henry from the right hand (while he was generally moving around and being a pest.) The point was not so much to reinforce Henry's pestiness, but to show Zachary that lying around Doing Nothing was a good way to get cookies.

Once they were paying attention to the correct appendage (which didn't take that long coming on the heels of last week's trick) I started tossing treats over Zachary's back - to the side Henry wasn't on - while at the same moment feeding treats to Zachary to get him to stay. As soon as Henry jumped and grabbed his treat, I'd toss one back the other way, meanwhile Zachary got a steady stream of reinforcement for Doing Nothing.

(Most of the head hitting occurred at this point. Thankfully, Zachary is a very forgiving dog, and honestly didn't seem to care - or even notice!)

With repetition, I was able to transform the hand motions into the cues; a fist in front of Zachary = "stay" and a pointing/moving hand to get Henry to jump.

Ta-Da!

(Skeptics will note that Zachary's paws and tail feathers never move in all 4 shots, showing he did, in fact, remain quite still!)

Now, quickly on to the Daily Shoot assignment:

Make a photograph illustrating a sound that catches your ear today.

Since I spent so much time on the Trick of the Week, I won't bore you with the shoot details. For the record, I tried large cookies (all I got were pictures of ears), keys (nothing was in focus), bitey-face (see keys), ringing of the doorbell (they kept looking out the window instead of the door as I hoped) and finally, at long last, the shredding of the paper bags.

(A big time favorite enrichment activity around here!)

I took a lot of bad pictures of them shredding paper bags, and I'm a bit surprised my seldom-used flash didn't burst into flames (hmm... perhaps if Glowing comes around again?) But I eventually got...

Whew!

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved