Tisen demonstrating he really does know how to pose

Getting from the first overlook at Cloudland Canyon to the second overlook is an easy walk.  The path is mostly asphalt and smooth and easy.  Since we’ve had a very late spring here, we even got to enjoy some late-blooming Hawthorn trees along the way.

I tried to get Tisen to pose for me as we made our way down the trail.  I need to do some more intentional dog training with him.  He’s really quite easy to train, but I have found I am very happy with our relatively casual relationship vs needing him to walk exactly where I want or constantly work to figure out my next command.  However, whenever Pat is walking him and I want to take his picture, I wish I had taught him a “pose” command.

For a second I thought I shot this at 70mm or so, but it was shot at 24mm–the other side of the gorge is close!

I would like to be able to say, “Tisen, Pose!” and have him turn towards me, doing something cute like stick out his tongue and tilt his head or pick up his favorite toy, and then freeze.  As it is, Tisen walks down the path ahead of me with daddy.  I call to them to stop.  Pat, my accommodating husband, stops, turns, smiles and waits.  Tisen, however, continues to face the opposite direction.

Looking out of the canyon and into lookout valley

I, of course, call Tisen to try to get him to turn around.  He invariably turns around, looks excited that I want to see him with his tail wagging like mad, and then tries to walk over to me.  Pat then tries to get him to come back to him to keep him in position.  This, predictably, causes Tisen to turn back around so his back is facing me once more.  And so it goes in this constant tug-of-war trying to get Tisen to both face me and stop moving.

Another view of the canyon

Every once in a while, Tisen will pause just long enough for me to get a rapid-fire series of shots off.  Usually, in a series of 8 shots, I’m lucky if he’s holding still in one of them.  The rest will have various parts of his head blurred.  On this particular walk, he managed to pause for me in near perfect position in a puddle of Hawthorn blossoms.  He looks so happy; it makes me smile.

Vertical version

On the way to the second overlook, I was teased by a Pine Warbler who, I believe, was following just behind me, singing enough bars to get me to get my long lens in place and then fly just out of sight when I turned around to photograph him.  This happens a lot when I happen to have a camera with a long lens on it handy.  It’s one of the reasons I often leave the long lens at home.

The second Overlook is my favorite.  You can see down both sides of the gorge and off into the distance between the peaks that surround the canyon.  The sky usually does interesting things as a bonus–even in mid-afternoon.

Tisen almost walking out of the frame