Just another day at the dog park.
Tomorrow’s post will not be a caturday supplement. But it also won’t be a normal dog-post. Stay tuned, true believers!
It's quite a bright harness, but I'm not sure it looks comfy.
The ball, on the other hand, is totally awesome. Also, look at those ear spots.
Ran into Oscar at the outdoor tables of a bar near my house, in the dark. He seemed pretty awesome, though, so I tried a few flash photos, which seem to have come out okay.
This is Oscar gazing adoringly up at his dad.
Oscar spends quite a lot of time gazing adoringly up at his dad.
I did get him to look in my direction a couple of times too.
She’s eight months old in these pictures… that means I can still call her a puppy, right? I think she has the most ‘up’ ears of any Aussie I’ve ever seen.
Today’s pictures are a lot of studies in ‘almost’. The one I really like is the last one in the list, but even it has an ‘almost’ attached. Not shown are another two dozen pictures that had ‘almost’ enough light to be tweakable into something recognizably canine, and a dozen more that had ‘almost’ enough shutter speed to make Stella anything more than a blur.
Had to crop this one down, because I *almost* got all of her in the frame, but missed the feet.
This one is 'almost interesting'. A lot of my pictures are like that: 'cute dog, so what?' Well, the blog is about dogs, but I like to see if I can get decent pictures too.
And this one... I was ALMOST able to zoom out enough in time to catch. It still works... almost.
This one has a whole set of 'almosts': almost all of her in the frame, almost fast enough shutter speed to capture the movement, almost held the camera still enough... and it's still almost pretty.
I absolutely adore the woman's expression, which is approximately the same one I had when I first saw this pup. (Except mine was 'eee!' instead of 'ooo!') But I'd still like it better if I'd managed to catch it from an angle where you can see the dog's face too.
I’ve actually run into Dee-Dee (12 weeks old here) twice. The first time, I took these pictures. The second time, I didn’t even recognize her, even though it was only a week or so later. Why? Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? I went into brain-overload-too-much-cuteness mode instantly upon seeing her.
Incidentally, she supposedly has a Facebook page, as ‘Dee Dee the Chug’, although I am unable to find it so maybe it was removed. (On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog until you tell them, but once you tell them, Facebook doesn’t think you have the right to your own web page.) Or maybe it’s just set private.
Just at the age where running often results in an accidental somersault or two.
Mom was quite good at getting the pup's attention. I was impressed.
While I was taking pictures, Dee-Dee had a sudden attack of cute-face. Well, cute-ER.
The tag says '866-60-FOUND www.idtag.com' and an ID number. Not a bad idea.
I can't decide if her face looks like a Chihuahua-y pug or a puggy Chihuahua.
Not shown, a few seconds after this picture: Dee Dee licking my ankle.
No, Nash isn’t luscious. Well, I guess that depends on your individual interpretation of the term. He’s an awfully cuddly happy dog, and he sure is cute. But he’s also the unofficial official workplace dog and mascot of the place I take my car, Luscious Garage.(If you don’t want to read an unsolicited testimonial, feel free to skip my next paragraph. And no, I didn’t get a discount for plugging them… I just think they’re great!)
It’s an awesome place, and I highly recommend them. They mostly service hybrids (and in fact service San Francisco’s fleet of hybrid taxicabs during the night hours) but are willing to take work on other cars (like my Acura Integra) as well, and they’re very good at what they do. They’re also very, very environmentally conscious, to such an extent that they don’t use paper documents at all: everything is emailed to you, and when you need to sign something, you sign a whiteboard and they take a picture of your signature. Pretty cool. Plus, they’re a woman-owned business (pretty unusual for a garage) and they’re quite accommodating of emergencies and special requests.
And they have a garage dog! (Or, at least, the bookkeeper has a dog she brings in when she’s there.) How could you get more awesome than that? Nobody’s sure what Nash is, but to my eye he looks part Catahoula, or maybe even ‘mostly Catahoula.’ He sure is 100% cuddly.
This is him inside. Look at the happy face!
The wall on the left is part of the grassy-mural-thing on Luscious Garage's new location. Quite pretty.
I think this is his determined expression. In this case, he was determined to get me to scratch his back, whether I was busy with a camera or not.
That's the happy face again. Nash is just a ray of sunshine.
Goofy. Also, cute socks!
New breed, UKC only acknowledged them since 2004, and I don’t think the AKC does yet. Trivia note: some American Hairless Terriers have full coats! Silly. Clearly not Rally though.
He definitely needed that jacket.
He's not actually hyperactive... it was just dim outside, so long shutter speeds.
Harley is 5 and a half years old. Why so serious, giant puppy?
That's dad in the background. Funny the way the camera distorted his head.
He WOULD NOT face me. Goofy dog.
I’m not sure about this, but I think Atlas might be the store dog for the eyewear store at 454 Geary. Sorry, I don’t know the name, since it doesn’t appear to have a sign. But it does have one hell of a dog.
I think I heard that Atlas is around 8 or 9 months, and is currently 90 pounds, and will end up nearly double that. Wow.
He's very well-trained and polite for a dog of that age. Doesn't jump up on people or slobber all over them even right after drinking.
I kept expecting him to get a great big Great Dane kiss, but no such luck.
The light was awful and I was shooting handheld at 1/40 of a second, but I'm still really sad that this one didn't come out well. Because those ears are RIDICULOUS.
Bay to Barkers is starting to feel like ages ago. These are two more pups I met there, Troy the rough-coated collie and Gypsy the smooth-coated collie. Mom and dad indicated that they were charter members of a Facebook group, something like ‘Rough and Smooth Collies of Northern California’, but I’m unable to find it to link to it, so you’re just going to have to settle for the dogs.
Edit: Sigh. Whyfor you screw up so much, WordPress?
This just cements the observation I made the first time I saw a smooth-coat: they are funny-looking. (Still awesome though.)
Those ears, with the 90-degree forward bend right at the tip!
Well, they're both very pointy.
This looks like it might be one of those sibling things. I may well have done it to my own brother, in fact.
This is the owner of The Scnozzola, along with the owner of the owner of the schnozzola. Does that mean she has dognose-by-proxy?
That's mom in the background. She seems like a happy Lab owner to me: she's always willing to be amused by her dog.
Just a teeny touch of tongue. And a very determined expression.
There's the schnozzola again. And, although I cut off the top of her head, you can see mom laughing in the background at her pup's attempts to smooch my camera.