Caturday Supplement: Neighborhood Trio

Not sure if I posted some of Autumn’s pictures of these three before or not. I took a quick look and couldn’t find them. They live about a block and a half from us, in a little bitty pedestrian alley between two row houses. The road out in front is a cable-car road on a hefty hill, so nobody takes it at more than 15 mph, and the cats seem to do just fine. They get fed by the people in this apartment building, and are quite tame. I hadn’t found them before this, although Autumn mentioned them several times. But now I know where they are, so I can go get some feline fuzz therapy every once in a while.

Three Black and White Cats

The eyes on the solid black one. Gorgeous.

Three Black and White Kitties

Should be pretty easy to guess where the people who feed them live.

Black and White Cat Stretching

Streeeeeetch! Also, cat-butt.

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Dog of the Day: Lhasa Apso Jailbird

Aww… wonder what he was caught doing?

Lhasa Apso

Was getting in my car when this pup popped up in the window about 20 feet away and let me know, in no uncertain terms, that this was his house and that visitors were not welcome! BarkbarkBARK!

Lhasa Apso

He totally cracks me up.

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Dog of the Day: Havelino the 9-Week-Old Pembroke Welsh Corgi Puppy!

There have been quite a few people, including some quite famous photographers, extolling the virtues of the iPhone as a camera. Why? Because you always have your iPhone with you. And a camera is no good if you don’t have it with you.

Well, I always always always have my compact camera with me: it’s a permanent resident in my left-side trouser pocket, along with my keys and change. Except yesterday. Yesterday I couldn’t find the damn thing, and rather than spend any real time searching, I figured I had plenty of pictures, and that I was highly unlikely to run into anything that I just HAD to take pictures of, especially since I was planning on going straight to work and then just coming straight home.

And I get to work, and what do I see standing pretty much right outside my workplace than a 9-week-old corgi puppy. To say that I squealed like an eight-year-old girl would be, strictly speaking, inaccurate, because I probably squealed like two eight-year-old girls. And pulled out the iPhone. Thank goodness I hadn’t forgotten that too! I also solicited a few pictures from Havalino’s dad. It’s probably pretty obvious which here are which.

By the way, ‘Havelino’ is an alteration of ‘javalina’, which is another term for ‘peccary‘, a sort of pig-like animal that wanders Arizona, Texas, Mexico, and various parts of Central and South America. I’m not entirely sure I see the resemblance, although I admit they do have pretty short legs.

9-Week-Old Corgi Puppy

I don’t understand people at all. I mean, three people just walked right by this puppy as he was sitting there on the sidewalk. Could YOU walk by this puppy without petting him?

8-Week-Old Corgi Puppy

It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a corgi puppy. If one gave me that look, I’d be like, ‘okay, okay, I’ll call in sick again today and spend the day alternately petting you and chasing you around the house.’

8-Week-Old Corgi Puppy

The rest (including this one) were taken by his dad.

9-Week-Old Corgi Puppy

The pink spots on the nose.

9-Week-Old Corgi Puppy

I think someone is teaching himself how to make elephant noises! (Trust me. You want to watch that. All the way through.)

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No Dog Today

Sorry, guys. Just spent a few hours doing some volunteer (IT-related) work for a worthy cause, and I’m really tired.

But I have something special for tomorrow…

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Dog of the Day: White Lab

Sweet older pup that I ran into at ‘Food Truck Thursdays‘ at Chameleon Cafe, Pacific and Leavenworth. If you’re in the neighborhood you owe it to yourself to drop by on Thursday evenings: they have a different food truck each week, and a surprising amount of the neighborhood ends up gathering there and socializing. Aside from me cornering these people and tackling their dogs, this may be the first exposure to other people in the neighborhood that some of these people have had!

White Labrador Retriever

Very light yellow lab. I guess these are called ‘white’ by some people, but that still feels weird to me.

Light Yellow Labrador Retriever

Someone was begging for skritches. If I recall correctly (and I might not, I’m missing my notes) this pup was being watched by one of Autumn’s dog-walking/dog-sitting competitors, ‘Who Let The Dogs Out!’

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Dogs of SF Contest: City Pictures

And of course the poll ended early again. Specifically, it appears to have ended at midnight GMT. I guess because my database is in GMT? But in any case, it hadn’t moved much lately, so I’m declaring polling closed. The final results:

  • Fifth place, with 1 vote, is ENTRY 2: The Golden Gate Bridge near sunset
  • Fourth place, with 6 votes, is ENTRY 5: Devo Surveys his Domain from Bernal Heights.
  • Third place, with 7 votes, is ENTRY 1: Violet in Front of Postcard Row.
  • Second place, with 33 votes, is ENTRY 3: Jasper Enjoying the Breeze on Baker Beach.
  • And the winner is, ENTRY 4: Lambeau on Bernal Heights at Sunset.

Congratulations, and thank you to everyone who entered. You guys are awesome! Prizes will be sent out all at once, so please be patient, since we have two more weeks of voting for the other two categories.

(Edit x4: Fixed. By creating a new poll and hacking in the results from the old poll. You will find that you can now vote again, if you voted before. Oh well. Probably won’t bias things too much. Anyway, I will publish the results on Monday, along with the new poll.)

(Edit x3: Well, how nice. The voting software I used appears to have decided to end the poll early, and now that it has ended the poll, it appears to have messed up the formatting of the site and I can’t figure out how to fix either of those two things. And this is a very popular, well-rated, and ‘well-tested’ polling WP plugin, too. Will fix as soon as I can figure out how.)

(Edit x2: don’t forget to vote! Voting for this part of the contest ends on Monday, to make way for the next part.)

(Edit: Woot! I figured out how to pin this post to the top. Normal daily posting is occurring below this post!)

All right, the voting has begun on the top contenders for Dogs of SF’s photo contest, and I am stunned by the quality of the entries. We are starting with ‘city’ entrants, mostly because that category got the fewest submissions. Still enough to pick the top five from, though! This whole thing has worked out even better than I’d hoped, and I’d like to thank everyone who submitted.

Please don’t try to vote a bunch of times for your favorite picture; I am sure it’s quite possible to game these things (in fact, I can think of a few different ways to do so) but I’d prefer if we could all just, you know, get along. I am going to leave this contest at the top of the front page for a week, for voting purposes, but I will still be posting Dogs of the Day… look just below this post for them. If I can figure out how to make that work.

Oh, I just realized: I didn’t ask people if they minded my using their names, so I am going to make the entries anonymous for now. If you would like me to use your name, either email me saying that you would, or claim your photo in the comments below, and I’ll adjust the title accordingly. I know some people are a little sensitive about this stuff. (And don’t worry, I would never publish someone’s email address.)

And now, without further ado, the entrants, in absolutely no particular order:

Violet in Front of Postcard Row

ENTRY 1: Violet in Front of Postcard Row. This is Violet, a Schipperke/Pomeranian mix, being goofy in front of one of the more recognizable landmarks of the city, Postcard Row.

Golden Gate Bridge

ENTRY 2: The Golden Gate Bridge near sunset. Only one person took me at my word, and submitted a ‘city’ pic without a dog in it. It has a bird, though!

Jasper Enjoying the Breeze on Baker Beach

ENTRY 3: Jasper Enjoying the Breeze on Baker Beach. With the Golden Gate in the background. It doesn’t get a lot more Dogs of San Francisco than that.

Lambeau on Bernal Heights at Sunset

ENTRY 4: Lambeau on Bernal Heights at Sunset. This is Lambeau the Tibetan Mastiff, who has been featured on DoSF before. He made me smile the first time I saw him, and no less so now.

Devo Surveys his Domain from Bernal Heights

ENTRY 5: Devo Surveys his Domain from Bernal Heights. I am honestly not quite sure what Devo is. Maybe we can get his owner to weigh in?

Soo… what do y’all think?

 

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Butterflyday Supplement

Unless something else exciting goes wrong, voting in the first category of my photography contest starts tomorrow. I’m trying to figure out how to work the voting, and I think I’ve got that. Next I need to figure out how to keep the poll at the top for a week, and a couple of other fun things.

In other news, I’m nearly out of cat pictures… well, out of my own cat pictures, I have plenty of submissions for the contest. So here is a picture of a pair (yes, there are two of them there) of San Francisco residents I found on my way to work a couple of weeks ago.

Western Swallowtail Butterfly

Always nice to see a few of these wandering through the city.

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Dog of the Day: Zoey the 11-Month-Old Possible Shiba Inu Mix

Well, mom had no idea what Zoey was, but I think she’s a Shiba mix. She’s so foxy and cute! She’s also super-friendly, and very curious. And has a somewhat alarming tendency to run around and around and around anything she happens to be tied up to. No, puppy, no strangling yourself!

Shiba Inu Mix

I was totally rude, I have to admit. I walked up and started taking pictures of this pup with her mom right there and I didn’t even ask. In my defense, I didn’t know that they belonged to each other.

Shiba Inu Mix

Can’t tell if that’s a smile or a smirk.

Shiba Inu Mix

Now that’s a grin!

Shiba Inu Mix

I love the black tailtip.

Shiba Inu Mix

Hey, are you laughing at me?

Shiba Inu Mix

Zoey can darken my door anytime she likes.

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Dog of the Day: Cokie the Chow Mix

What do you think? Chow/Pomeranian? Maybe Chow/Shiba Inu? Mom says she’s ten years old, and was rescued from Tijuana.

Chow Mix

What a teddy bear!

Chow Mix

A cuddly teddy bear!

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Dog of the Day: Only The Shadow Knows (Well, Okay, Actually He’s MacGregor the Scottish Terrier)

I ran into MacGregor a couple of weeks ago and I just HAD to stop and snag a couple of pictures although I knew that such a black dog on such a bright day, at noon, was going to be murder. And indeed, I got THE SHADOW.

Fortunately, MacGregor’s mom found the blog and sent me a few (rather small) pictures of him, to augment mine. Unfortunately, hers are mostly kind of silhouettes too. Oh well. MacGregor, it turns out, is hard to photograph at any time.

Oh, MacGregor’s story is worth a mention as well. Apparently he was taken away from his original owner by the Northern Cal Scottie Rescue when he was four, because he was being abused. (As in, they actually came in and took him away, against the owner’s will.) At that point he was terrified of everything: kids, cars, adults, other dogs, you name it.

And today he’s nine years old, and is the mayor of AT&T park: he knows all the regulars and drops by to say hello, he personally greets all the strangers he sees, and he chases the sea lions and seals up and down along the edge of the pier when they show up there. He’s a perfect gentleman, and I was quite honored to meet him. Guess that goes to show how much good a happy home can do!

Scottie (AKA Scottish Terrier/Aberdeen Terrier)

Why did I go with this picture? Because of the thirty or so I took, this is one of only two that had a visible eye. He really is a little bitty cheerful black hole.

Scottie (AKA Scottish Terrier/Aberdeen Terrier)

And why did I pick this one? One word: EYEBROWS.

Scottie (AKA Scottish Terrier/Aberdeen Terrier)

Mom provided me with a few very low-res pics, so I made up a little montage. Top: MacGregor keeping a watchful eye out for seals. Bottom left: MacGregor exploring for treats. Bottom right: MacGregor, on vacation from his mayoral duties, at Chrissie Field.

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