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!
Found this guy standing around outside of our favorite cheese shop. And I have to say, if golden retrievers are the ‘happy stoners’ of the dog world, this guy could definitely give them a run for their money.
Well, maybe he’s just high on cheese.
I have to admit, I wear an expression like his every time I walk into the cheese shop. Cheese and chocolate... my two biggest weaknesses.
Those are Autumn's hands, trying to get at his nametag while petting him.
I'm not sure I've ever had that expression. If I did, it wasn't in a cheese shop.
Doesn't he look like he ought to be standing on a surfboard?
Some dogs are food-motivated. I think Axl is just people-motivated.
I ran into Mickey one morning on the way to work, and immediately knew I had to take some pictures. After all, how often do you run into a dog wearing galoshes?
Turns out Mickey moved to San Francisco (with his mom) recently, and started licking his feet excessively after going out on walks. After trying a few other things, mom got him some boots, which seems to have pretty much taken care of the problem. This has caused the realization on my part that my aversion to dog clothes does not extend to boots: they looked ridiculously adorable, and red was absolutely perfect for such a white dog.
(The last picture was taken by Mickey’s mom, from atop twin peaks. Gorgeous!)
By the way, I have a vague recollection that Mickey’s last name might be Featherstone, in which case he is named after the rather ruthless gangster Mickey Featherstone, member of the Hell’s Kitchen gang ‘The Westies’. If this is indeed the case, I think it’s awesome, although perhaps a bit unfair to what seemed like a perfectly nice and very unlikely-to-shiv-you dog.
It was bright out. On the one hand, it washes out his fur a little, but on the other, he was moving around so fast that I would never have gotten anything but a blur in darker conditions.
The ever-popular 'giant head with tiny legs' pose, only this time with boots.
I'm sure there's something witty to be said about this picture. Feel free to fill it in yourself.
Looks like we have a bow-wow grazer in our browsers! (Okay, okay, but it's better than nothing, right?)
Mickey definitely had his own agenda. They're the dogs that are the most fun to photograph, because you don't have to keep shooing them away from the camera.
Photo courtesy of Mickey's mom. Lovely view, and happy face.
Husky/akita is what mom says. She’s huge, though, so might be part malamute instead. Anyway, she is certainly the embodiment of all that is fluffy. She’s 8 years old, but it doesn’t seem to have slowed her down much.
Happy smile, pretty fur, good size. A++++ Excellent Dog, Would Hug Again.
Those spots on the nose really do something for me.
*sigh* Yes, that is the shadow of my camera on her chest.
I’m actually not sure… mom said Hash was a pit bull/lab mix, but I’m going to have to go with Staffordshire/Lab. Looking at the face, he looks a lot like one, plus he’s sort of squat to be a pit bull/Lab mix. However, he’s just a puppy (4.5 months) so who knows what he’ll grow up to look like.
Those ears. So ridiculous. They flop up and down as he walks, too.
I predict a lot of dog treats in Hash's future. Who could say no to that face?