Pre-Wordless

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Dog Blog Post #259: Today's Daily Shoot Assignment was...

Make a feeling that conveys a sense of being outdoors today.

I've stared at that sentence off and on all day, and it still makes no grammatical sense to me, at all.

That said, it's pretty clear that you need to take a picture that looks/feels like the great outdoors, which means...

Field Trip!

Now it just so happens that on this very day, an extremely rare event occurred. Due to reasons not fully explained (at least to me) Lacrosse practice was held in a public park, and even more unusually, it was actually held during daylight hours.

Perfect! So I grabbed son, Henry, and the camera, and headed off to a lovely, well-tended, totally pointless yet massive grassy area - the sort that environmentalists must hate as it sucks up gobs of water (a precious resource around here) is a virtual wasteland for native species and takes boat-loads of tax dollars to keep green, growing, and mown.

I mean, just look at it (well, once I post it - for Wordless Wednesday - coming up very soon!)

It's gorgeous. I wish the grass in my yard looked 1/10th this good. And it goes on forever... the part you will be seeing is just a tiny fraction. Yet most of it was contoured (note the trees will be vertical - the picture is actually level with the horizon, it's the grass that slopes) so you couldn't play organized sports on it if you wanted to.

There are no stripes, no goals, no field markers... just... grass. Acres and acres of... grass.

Anyway - we had a lovely walk, and I took a lot of pictures of the dog, of grass, of the dog on the grass, and included in all that was the shot in the post coming up next.

Does it have anything to do with the topic? Well, it's definitely outdoors. And I'm pretty sure it shows feeling... of some sort. While I saw it when he did it, and got two shots of it,  I'm clueless as to his motive. Nothing obvious occurred that would have prompted it,  although I'm certainly open to suggestions if people have any!

... stay tuned!

Editors Note: A few days back greygirl25 suggested my usage of a flash might have caused the lack of smiles. Ok... she was kidding. I get it. :) But for the record, I don't actually use flash for any pictures except the "motion" (bitey-face/paper-shredding) shots, where I do try very hard to only snap it when their eyes are looking elsewhere.

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Trick of the Week

Dog Blog Post #258: Once again, I let time slip away. I finished last week's trick on Monday, videoed it, then took Tuesday and Wednesday "off" from trick training because... because... I have no idea why. I just did. Thursday rolls around, and I'm sitting in Family Dog class when I see Henry doing this really cute...

Head Tilt

...thing. It's fairly subtle, but after doing a bit of experimenting I realized I could
 sometimes reproduce it by making soft, high-pitched sounds.

Henry - Before Tilt

Tilt Right

Tilt Left

I spent the rest of my trick time trying to capture (that is, reward) the head tilt when I saw it, and making a variety of goofy noises to get him to do it. After a day or so (we're talking Saturday/Sunday, now) with his head tilting pretty reliable (if still a rather subtly) when I made the right sound, I started adding my own head tilt right before I made a sound, in hopes he would "catch a cue." :)

He's getting there, but I think it's going to take some time to get a really nice big tilt, a task that will be accomplished by shaping, which for me, involves giving bigger rewards for bigger tilts while still giving a least one treat for any tilt.

All this has let me to the several conclusions...

1. I can't afford to waste half the week before starting a trick.
2. Getting a solid cue to a trick is probably not going to happen (for most tricks) in the same week as I teach the trick. In fact, I should probably consider it a two week process - the first week to teach it, and the second week to get a solid cue.
3. Teaching just one trick a week is fraught with danger, and it should probably be a three week process, where I'm starting to teach a trick in week one, perfecting it in week two, and getting a solid cue on it in week three. That means while one trick is getting a cue, one trick is being perfected and posted about here, and one is in the planning/early training mode.

But I'm not sure I can be that organized all year, so we'll see how it goes!

On to the Daily Shoot. Today's assignment was:

Today's theme is red. Red hot? Red paint? Or something else? You decide.

Today's schedule was odd, leaving me only a few moments to get a picture in the waning light of a late afternoon cloudy day. The best of the bunch is at the top of the post. If I had to do it over again, I might try just Henry reaching into the bag, and leave Zachary out.

OR

Get a better (brighter) picture of Zachary looking into the bag (shown below)

Zachary and Bag

Editor's Note: Yesterday, as I was grumbling about the dearth of smiles, Elyse mentioned that Riley smiles too much. Assuming she means Riley sits there with her mouth open, a few things I've tried that actually worked include: blowing toward your dog right before you snap the picture. This assumes you are doing a close up! I also helps if you have just eaten something interesting.

If you haven't eaten anything interesting, but having smelly treats on you (like cheese) then try blowing across the cheese. This usually gets them to close their mouths so they can better sniff what the breeze brings.

Another option is to act like you're going to toss the treats. My boys (counter-intuitively) close their mouths when I'm twitching my fingers like I'm going to toss the treat, then open when the treat goes flying.

If you have good aim, and Riley knows to stay put even after she catches the treat, you can toss the treat, wait for her to catch and swallow (assumes small, easy to gulp treats) then snap the shot immediately afterwards when her mouth will (hopefully) be closed.

And that's about I all know about that!

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Smile!

Henry

Dog Blog Post #257: Today's Daily Shoot assignment?

Make a photograph of a smile today.

Awwww, heck. How hard can that be? Who can forget Zachary's winning smile in the recent "headband" shot...

Or the happy couple, in the shot I titled "Prom Night"...

(I'm probably dating myself with that one... Moving on...)

So out came "the set"- the backboard, ex-pen, butterfly clips...

... plus dog pillow, lovely new burgundy fabric, cheap black "drop cloth" fabric, and a couple of smiling dogs...

Hello? Smiling dogs? Are you out there?

Rats.

It seemed there was a sudden shortage of smiling dogs at my house. I had eager dogs, somber dogs, pensive dogs, sad dogs, and tired dogs.

No smiling dogs.

And on the few occasions when I did manage to get one smiling dog, the other one was invariably doing something stupid - like rolling his eyes, or closing his eyes, or looking glum, or just sitting there being blurry!

Arg!

In the end, the picture below was the best I could get.

Zachary and Henry

Really Henry? Is that best you could do, babe???

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved