I’m a little low on time today, so here’s a teaser for a group of corgis that I will be posting sometime soon. Dad doesn’t seem to be entirely happy with them, I think because the one on his back really isn’t supposed to be rolling in whatever he’s rolling in.
If corgis can't make your day a little brighter, then things must be dismal indeed.
An interesting pair. They were staring at the store that (presumably) mom or dad was in. Fixedly. As if, if they took their eyes off of it for just a moment, mom/dad would vanish and never be heard from again.
This is the two of them staring right past me.
And then I walked around and photographed them from the side.
Ran into this sweetheart outside of the GLBT History Museum in the Castro district. She’s one of those funky newfangled colors for Labrador retrievers, but she’s still the same old Lab at heart. (And thank goodness for that!)
Maybe I just see so many black, brown, and yellow labs that I am desensitized to them, but I think the silver color is unusually gorgeous.
Rue was mistress of a thousand expressions, most of them goofy. Sadly, it was really grey outside and most of my pictures came out blurry.
Okay, that's a pretty goofy face.
Some dogs do this as a hint to where they want to be petted. It never hurts to ask, huh?
The latter is just a (very) humble guess by moi; the former is, well, less humble and less of a guess.
San Francisco DogFest 2011. Yes, last April. Hey, I have some pictures that are even older than that left to post.
These two were having a grand old time.
I can't tell what these expressions signify. (Is it just me or did the mixed breed dog just lose his ears?)
These two were chilling out in front of the Crossroads Café, begging for skritches. (Someday I’ll be able to remember the difference between French bulldogs and Boston terriers. Until then, there’s Google image search.)
There are a few places to tie up dogs outside this cafe. They were tied up at the the 'we get to lick everyone going in or out' location.
Those two have never met the dogs before. They just walked up and said 'Oh god look at those cute little dogs!' Kindred spirits.
I am not sure how I got his attention, but you must admit, it's cute!
(Sorry boys, I don’t think your affection-hunting technique would work for me.)
I’ve noticed that a log of blogs seem to be doing wrap-ups for the year, complete with all sorts of pretty graphs and arrows and pictures and comparisons. (“My blog got more than 223 San Francisco cable cars’ worth of visitors!” “Oh yeah? Well, my blog served up more documents than a standard-sized US mail van can hold!”)
I don’t have any of that, because I don’t use one of the blogging services, and neither Google Analytics (which I do use) nor the stat software I run on the server provides pretty pictures meant for human consumption. However, it does seem like a reasonable time to do one, not just because it’s a new year but because it was two years ago this month that I really started posting on this blog in earnest. (In November 2009, I posted once. In December, about 18 posts, with large gaps. In January, 30 posts on 29 days, and since then it’s been pretty much daily.)
So, one thing I’ve learned about my readership from these site statistics is that I have quite a lot of sophisticated readers who don’t like to be tracked by Google Analytics. Even discounting all of the traffic I get from automated web crawlers of one kind or another (such as the Google search indexer and the Google image crawler), and the traffic from blog spammers, there is still a significant difference between what my native site counter says and what Google’s tools say. There’s also another problem: I didn’t move the site to its current location until March of last year, and I didn’t start using Google Analytics until May. So both of these sets of numbers are incomplete. Which is why I’ll be using average monthly numbers instead of whole-year numbers.
Although there is this disparity, I’m still going to use the google numbers for everything except the total data figures. Why? Because it’s really hard to filter out all the web crawlers and robots and such. Man, this web stuff is complimicated.
So it looks like my little community is growing. Hooray! (There were a couple of large spikes in December, including one day where I had well over a thousand unique visitors, when I posted links to a couple of dogs to a discussion on Reddit, so I don’t expect January to be quite as good as December… but who knows?)
What’s next for DoSF? Well, I’m working on a DoSF store, possibly including the option for people to purchase pictures of their dogs (or someone else’s dog!) printed to canvas. There’s a local company in San Francisco that does an incredible job of this, if you give them good artwork. And I may also be getting an occasional guest blogger in. Stay tuned, dear readers!
And in the mean time, here’s a picture of one of the parks that I visit to find dogs to take pictures of.
Rincon Park. Why a giant bow and arrow? I don't know. Why not? This is San Francisco.
Get a load of this guy. A shar-pei/bulldog mix should be just about the saggiest dog you’ve ever seen, and Uno just isn’t.
Why? Well, for the most part, it’s probably just genetics. Maybe shar pei ‘sag’ comes from a different set of genes than bulldog ‘sag’? But there’s also something else going on here… Uno got an inadvertent facelift! Apparently he had some kind of tumor on his forehead, and when it was removed, one consequence was that stitching him back up tightened the skin on his face. Awesome.
I ran into Uno at the Delancy Street Restaurant, on the Embarcadero. Good food, as Uno surely can tell.
There's a good shot of the facelift scar.
He has that 'if you're awesome and you know it' look.
I love the skulls on the collar. "WARNING! DO NOT APPROACH THIS DOG OR YOU WILL BE LOVED TO DEATH!"
Ever heard that phrase before? It means ‘sitting pretty’ or ‘in a great position’. First appearance in print is in a James Thurber story called ‘In the Catbird Seat‘, although he picked it up from legendary sportscaster “Red” Barber, who picked it up in Cincinnati.
Anyway, for this Caturday, I’d have to say that this bird sure looks like he’s sitting in the catbird seat. (And, for newcomers, I don’t just post cats on Caturday, I post whatever I have that isn’t a dog.)
Meet Jason. He's a 22-year-old African Grey Parrot. Funny thing about parrots: the bigger they are, the longer they live. Exact opposite of dogs.
I have rarely seen an animal that looks more like someone dipped a body part in a bucket of paint... and that includes a few animals who did have a body part dipped in paint.
Xander’s 3/4 Shiba Inu. The other 1/4? Well, we’re not sure. Either way, he’s cute and his momma loves him like a rock! (For you Paul Simon fans out there.)
Yes, that's a stone (concrete?) painted statue of a bulldog in the background. Ten points for anyone who can tell me what establishment this is in front of.
For some reason I can totally picture this dog with a little tie on. I wonder why that is?
Good thing that this sweetie is patient, because I got to her a little late.
(Had an appointment with a large strange piece of medical equipment this afternoon, and I didn’t quite get a chance to post a dog beforehand. Sorry ’bout that.)
She was being patient out in front of the Crossroads Cafe. What a sweet face.
It kind of amazes me that dogs still get their winter coats, even in the super-mild San Francisco winters.
Yes, yes, I know I just posted a heterochromatic Aussie. What can I say... they're gorgeous!
I love this pose. Faithful companion waits patiently for master to return. She even looks casual about it.
It wouldn't be a Dog of the Day without a little tongue showing.