He’s only eight months old, but he’s already a big fella! His name is the Italian version of Ulysses/Odyssus, but it doesn’t look like he had any trouble finding a home.
(Is anyone else reminded of Sweetums, the muppet?)
Widest tongue ever.
That’s a lot of happy. Lucky there’s a lot of dog to contain it.
Big tongue, big nose, big mouth, long ears… everything about this pup is oversized.
That’s definitely a Sweetums face right there.
Okay, I’ve seen some impressive mixes in my time, but… Chihuahua/German shepherd? And the mom was the Chihuahua? Oy, just thinking about that makes parts of my body that I don’t even have hurt.
That said, Abiba (7 months old, the name means ‘Beloved’) is clearly a totally awesome pup. So cute.
This honestly looks like some kind of Japanese anime German shepherd puppy. So ridiculous!
Not sure what the weird glowy effect is from the ball.
I don't think he's going to get much bigger than he is now.
Yes, the ball is slightly too big for his mouth. Watching him chase it is hysterical.
What an unusual little guy. How likely is it that random breedings of three breeds, two of which don’t generally get blue merles, would end up with a blue merle as the result? To add to this confusion, the little guy has eye trouble, which is really common in merles… but it was due to an injury that lost him an eye, not due to genetics. (And his other eye works just fine, and he seems like a super-happy pup.)
Awfully cute. (And yes, blah blah bright sunlight blah blah. *sigh*)
You can definitely see the Chihuahua in there, and the Pomeranian is obvious. Not so sure about the dachshund.
Aww. I get the feeling that even if he didn't have the gimpy eye, he'd still be winking at me.
Finally! I’ve been hunting for these guys for ages. They are so awesome: one of the first retriever breeds (along with the flat-coated retrievers), and ridiculous looking, with the squared-off retriever body and the poodle-like coat! Plus they’re super-rare, and it’s always cool to run across a rare breed.
Nash’s dad, it turns out, is one of the founders of a pet supplies company that is based in San Francisco, called Luxury Pets, and Nash may soon be one of the spokesdogs of the company. Go Nash!
(The last three pictures I got from Nash’s dad, although the one with the white background was taken by a professional photographer.)
Aww. Sweet face! Looks like a Lab expression.
Big yawn. Nash has great pearly-whites...
...as you can see! VICIOUS DOG! EVERYBODY RUN!
Yup. Vicious. Evil nasty vicious... cuddly... dog.
The ever-popular 'canine speedbump' pose.
Aww, sweet puppydog eyes!
Plaintive gaze. Wonder what he's thinking? (Also, see? I'm not the only one who has trouble bringing out detail on black dogs in the sun!)
Pretty contrast.
All I can say is, whaaaaaat? How did this professional photographer turn Nash BROWN?
A few sea lions for your viewing pleasure. Hey, they bark like dogs, right?
Anyone know anything about the boat in the background? There were several around there, all with the same red sails. I know a decent amount about sailboats, but I’ve never seen a triangular rigging without a boom. (Or is there a diagonal boom in there somewhere?)
Autumn and I call sea lions ‘orkorks’, because that’s the noise they make. (When they’re not busy making very rude noises.)
A larger than usual post today, to make up for the lateness, and also because I have one that I’ve been meaning to get to for a few days now. I think I’m going to leave this one up for tomorrow, or maybe just post a wildlife picture tomorrow, so that these two can have the limelight for a while.
These two pups belong to some neighbors of mine, from a block or so away. They’re the first ones (aside from Watson) that I made an appointment to see, instead of just running into randomly. And, after some initial mishaps (we all arrived early, and then proceeded to not notice one another until nearly half an hour after we were scheduled to meet) we did get some photos in.
Incidentally, I’m going to forgo my usual ‘dog dialog’ hovertext for these pictures. (For those of you who haven’t noticed: if you hover your mouse cursor over a picture, my attempt at a doggie thought bubble will pop up.) The ones of Diablito would be fine, but Missy Pooh is a recent rescue, and was obviously rescued from a really bad situation, and I have no interest in writing depressing dog dialog, nor in making fun of a suffering pup.
This is Diablito, as you can no doubt guess by his coloration. Diablito is smart, well-trained...
...fit, playful...
...sociable...
...and just as ball-obsessed as one might imagine an Australian Cattle Dog mix would be.
This is Missy Pooh. She's... well... not. She's a recent rescue, and it's pretty clear that her previous owners did not deserve to own a dog.
I'm sure her current owners have treated her with nothing but kindness, but I couldn't shake the feeling that she was always terrified that if she did the wrong thing, they'd beat her.
They say she's a lot better at home. I hope that's true, for the sake of their sanity. Watching a pretty pup like this cringe from me like I was a vicious monster for weeks on end would wear my soul down to a nub very quickly.
This was the closest she got to normal pit bull body language while I was there.
This was the more typical posture.
One good thing: she and Diablito seem to get along great. He's clearly got her back.
Hope her new parents are up to the daunting task of taking this poor girl and working through her issues. They seem experienced, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed.
Busy day at work. I’ll post after work today.
Today I have for you some more pictures from Bay to Barkers. In particular, the boy in the pictures is Joey, and the dog is Romeo the golden retriever mix, with a special guest appearance by Toby the golden retriever.
I was pretty excited to get the pictures, because it turns out that Joey is also a dog blogger, and he even gave me the address of his blog. But I checked it today… and I must have copied it down wrong, because not only doesn’t it exist, but it looks like it never did. The address he gave me was joeysdogblog.com, but I can’t find anything even remotely like that that looks like it might be his. So Joey, if you’re out there, put the real address in comments and I’ll post it for you!
(Oh, by the way, you can tell Romeo’s a mix because he has dead white hind feet, and a tiny white spot right in the middle of his forehead. But he’s 3/4 golden retriever.)
Joey and Romeo. Guess which one went swimming?
Joey, Romeo, and Joey's mom. Looks like a pretty happy family to me.
Toby. If this were a buddy movie, he'd be the goofy-but-dumb one with a heart of gold.
Well, *I'm* not going to try to separate these two.
To see a world in a grain of sand/And a heaven in a wild flower/Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour.
Pictures are from the annual Swiss Dog Day in San Francisco. I have rarely seen such a good example of the ‘play bow’ or ‘play pose’ or whatever you like to call it before. The tail is straight up in that last picture. (Sadly, the Greater Swiss couldn’t come out to play.)
After they broke down everything for the day, I have no doubt that there were still tufts of Bernese fur floating around for days afterwards. The nearby birds probably have very colorful nests.
Funny contrast. Giant poofly fur vs Labrador-retriever-like fur.
Look at that pose. Tail is perfectly straight up. Almost looks like a skunk!
A picture from my trip to Monterey a couple of weeks ago. I rented a 70-200mm f2.8 zoom lens and a 2x teleconverter for my Canon 50D for the trip. (For those who don’t know what that is, it just doubles the amount of magnification you get from a lens, at the expense of letting a lot less light through).
I learned a few things that probably should have been obvious in retrospect.
Well, I did get a few decent pictures. I’ll post them here every once in a while. The first one I have tentatively identified as a whimbrel, a species of curlew. This is awesome because Autumn knows at least a half-dozen tunes named after curlews, including this one.
Effective camouflage!