‘Fraidy Cats

Posted by dkrashb on July 24, 2013

Bonnie trying to hide herself in a too-small corner

While staying with a friend in Columbus over the weekend, I pulled out my big hulkin’ DSLR with a 24-70mm lens on it and added a big hulkin’ speedlite along with an even bigger hulkin’ softbox made for speedlites.

There were 2 dogs and 1 granddog in the house when I got this piece of equipment out. No one would have guessed that from the looks of the place. All the dogs disappeared as soon as my camera came into view.

This was definitely a sign that my flash and modifier were an especially intimidating combination. Although Bonnie has always been terrified of cameras (or any similar looking soul-sucking device), Paris and Elliott are normally posers.

Paris trying to blend in with the wall

I got down on all fours to better discover the hiding places of my four-legged friends. I found Bonnie hiding behind the fireplace–she paused just long enough for me to get one shot and then she scurried off to some hiding place far more effective, not to be seen again until long after my camera had been put away.

Elliott was frozen under the coffee table, convinced he had become invisible until the flash fired the first time. Paris, one who normally lounges in the open and gazes wistfully at the camera as if to say, “Oh yes, another paparazzi lurking about waiting to take my picture,” was stuffed under the side table, behind the cords for the various electronics in the vicinity. Far from looking ready to pose, she looked nearly as terrified as Bonnie normally looks.

Elliott frozen in position

I got only one shot each of the dogs before they disappeared until little Elliott, fooled by the camera being placed on the coffee table for a while, decided it was time to reclaim his favorite spot on the sofa. He curled his tiny body into a tight ball on the top edge of the sofa pillows. As soon as I grabbed my camera, he hunkered down, attempting to hide himself behind the pillow fringe.

All I can say is he must have been really comfortable on that pillow not to jump up and run for cover.

Elliott curled on the couch

Entertaining Children

Posted by dkrashb on July 23, 2013

Ireland giggling in spite of the bright sun in her eyes

One last post from my visit with friends Friday morning . . . I think I am suffering from child envy. Not something that happens too often, but seeing this particular family always makes me long for the particular set of joys and heart aches that come with having a family.

I mentioned in a previous post that watching the adults entertain the children was well worth the visit. Entertaining the young involves making many faces.

There’s the I’m-so-exuberant-that-my-face-is-going-to-break-if-I-smile-any-harder face. I suspect I make this face a lot at babies. The eyes open wide, the eyebrows raise, nose crinkles, and the mouth opens into a jack-o-lantern grin.

Grandma make Ireland squeal and she comes in for some sugar

For me, perhaps because I have learned through many years experience working with dogs and don’t have any other skills, this face is accompanied by the high-pitched happy-puppy voice. It’s the voice that tells dogs you’re pleased and excited and they should be, too. It’s effectiveness with babies may be limited–it did not convince little Ireland that I was more interesting than getting fed, for example.

There’s also the “awww” face. That’s the face that may be accompanied by a pouting bottom lip, a head tipped downward, eyes rolled slightly upward and a general “aww, aren’t you happy?” sort of demeanor. This face, by the way, is also ineffective at distracting a baby from the 3 basics: 1) hunger, 2) fatigue, or 3) dirty diaper. I did enough babysitting growing up to know that if you have an unhappy baby, start with those 3 things and then move on to making faces.

There’s also the I-love-you-so-much-I-would-do-anything-to-make-you-smile face. Grandma’s seems to have this face down. This is not terribly different from the I’m-so-exuberant face, but seems to be honed for kissing. My friend exhibited this behavior in a way I can never hope to imitate. I think you have to be a card-carrying grandma to do this effectively.

Grandma demonstrating how to make a finger jump from one hand to the other

Besides baby Ireland, there was also a young nephew visiting, Jonathan. As one might expect with any 8-year old, Jonathan was not so entertained by sitting around watching adults make silly faces at a baby. Lucky for Jonathan, he was in the hands of professionals.

From Ireland’s grandparents, he attempted to learn how to make mosquito sounds with his mouth, how to make frog noises by flicking his throat, how to make one leg disappear, and, most challenging, how to move one finger from one hand to the other. I was a little disappointed that no one showed him how to steal a nose, but he was pretty caught up in the finger-jump trick, so I didn’t want to confuse him further.

I did capture my friend/Grandma teaching the finger-jumping trick. I wish I would have been standing on the other side of her, though, to capture Jonathan’s face of wonder.

My canine baby patiently waiting for my return to Chattanooga

Dog House

Posted by dkrashb on July 17, 2013

Even scratching is cute when a puppy does it

The vet we saw on Saturday specializes in dermatology. Similar to a specialist in human medicine, his office is far more luxurious than most vet offices. Rather than a stark, sterile place, it’s a house on a lake that’s been converted to a vet practice.

They kept a large, open room in the front as a living room setting with lots of big furniture to lounge in and wide open spaces for pets to run around in. They even provide a big bowl of tennis balls in case you didn’t bring your own toys.

Out front they have a fenced play area with a miniature agility course and small goldfish pond. Through a gate there’s a large fenced yard that slopes down to the lake. The fence ends at the water and a large flock of domestic geese hang out at the water’s edge in spite of having been chased into the lake by more than one dog.

Conner, the vet’s brand new puppy, has quite a life ahead of him. He will go to work every day with his dad and be surrounded by dog lovers. Between the assistant, the collection of vet techs, and the puppy-loving customers, he was having a hard time getting enough sleep.

When we first arrived, he was napping in a chair next to another customer. When Tisen rudely squeaked his latest toy, Lamp Chop, repeatedly, Conner managed to open one eye part way and slightly lift his head, just enough to identify who had the audacity to disturb his nap. I sat there wishing I’d brought my camera in with me. So much so, I went out to the car to get it.

Of course, as soon as I returned, the vet was ready for us, so I missed the opportunity to catch Conner napping. But when it was time for us to leave Tisen for an hour, Conner was waking up. The assistant took him out in the yard to play and I was quickly reminded how unpredictable puppies are as I chased Conner around the small yard trying to get a shot.

Conner rears up to take the jump

True to form, in my rush to catch Conner every time he didn’t something cute, I forgot to check my settings from shooting at the park we’d stopped at on the way in. When I finally got a good look at the images, I was dismayed that I had too slow of a shutter speed to get much that was worth keeping.

But Conner was so cute, I couldn’t discard all the images. Especially when he made an attempt to jump over the low jump in the agility course. The vet had just picked up Conner the night before, so this was the first time he’d seen the agility course. We were all impressed.

For those of you worried about Tisen from yesterday’s post, he is still sick, but improving. He saw our local vet today and we are hopeful his stomach will settle soon.

Conner changes his mind mid-leap and darts around the jump instead

Pit Stop

Posted by dkrashb on July 16, 2013

This image looks way more interesting in sepia that it did in color–why is that?

On Saturday, we went on a not-so-fun road trip. We took Tisen to see a doggie dermatologist to get allergy tested. His allergies have been getting worse and worse and he’s been getting more lethargic.

We skipped his antihistamine the night before and the morning of so as not to interfere with the allergy test. This had a profound effect on his energy level. When I took him for his morning walk, instead of feeling like I was walking a pet turtle, I was having to double-time it to keep up. In fact, he actually galloped the last 100 yards back to the building, charged down the hall, and then ran all over the place once we were home, chasing me and tossing his toys around like a puppy.

It made me sad to realize how much the drugs had been affecting him. My poor boy.

What a silly face!

We loaded him into the van and took off for Louisville. That’s Louisville, Tennessee–there are not many unique city names in the Eastern US.

In any case, Louisville is just outside of Knoxville. It reminds me a little of the Lake of the Ozark’s in Missouri in terms of scenery, but it’s not ridiculously over-developed–or if it is, they hide it well.

We arrived about 30 minutes ahead of schedule, so we made a stop at Admiral Farragut Park. There, we found a nice little walk by the lake, a good strong breeze, and a sign that told us about Admiral Farragut who was born in Knoxville and joined the navy when he was 9 years old. I used to think I was industrious because I started mowing lawns at 9–now I feel like a slacker!

My boys

I got out my camera and attempted to find something interesting in the high-noon sun. I was impressed that on a Saturday in July, we saw only 3 boats go by in a half an hour–definitely not like the Lake of the Ozark’s.

Then, I turned and saw Tisen and Pat waiting on me. Pat was petting Tisen and apparently hit a spot Tisen really wanted scratched–he started backing up so Pat could reach better with the silliest expression on his face. My happy boy . . . I wish he were looking half as happy now.

He was sedated for his allergy test and has been so miserable ever since, I am feeling horribly guilty. On the plus side, he hasn’t been itching since we got back. There’s not really a good explanation for that–he’s been so sick we haven’t given him anything new. The only thing that’s changed is we found out he’s allergic to dust mites (along with about 25 other allergens) so we got rid of his old bed that had a washable cover over an un-washable fill. We got him one that’s completely washable instead.

I don’t know if I’ll every forgive myself if all this time it was his bed making him itch!

A view of the lake, which is really a reservoir on the Tennessee River

Fast Camera

Posted by dkrashb on July 12, 2013

I am experimenting with a new iPhone photography app called Fast Camera. It’s fun little app that starts firing away in rapid-fire mode the moment you launch the app. You can change the settings so you have to push the button manually, but what fun is that?

I love the idea of being able to capture rapidly moving objects (such as Tisen) before they stop doing the thing that I wanted to take a picture of in the first place.

This is a constant struggle with smart camera apps. By the time I get the app started, get the thing focused and click the button, whatever I was hoping to capture has often already gone on it’s merry way or turned its back to me.

However, I find I am struggling with this app a bit. The first problem is it starts taking photos as I am raising it into position, so I end up with 24 shots that look like this:

I am not fond of my feet. Certainly not fond enough of them to want two dozen pictures of my toes. And I’d much rather have Tisen’s entire face in the frame than just his nose. (I really didn’t mean for that to rhyme.) That said, it is easy to delete all the extraneous misfires, so that’s not a huge problem.

I also like that the app does not automatically save all the images to my camera roll–that would fill up my photostream with a bunch of crap I would rather never see again.

However, the down side of it not saving images to my camera roll is that I end up with a collection of photos inside the app that I forget all about and then discover again weeks later when I next use it. For example, I had 62 images that looked pretty much identical to this:

I cannot come up with where this image was taken or whose foot that could possibly be. Perhaps I should have a “who can identify this photo” contest? I can only imagine that I accidentally launched the app and didn’t even realize it was shooting away.

Yesterday, I chose this app over the more familiar apps I use to catch Tisen trotting down the hall in his happy mode. This means he was picking his feet up, wagging his tail, and holding Lamb Chop (the newest addition to his family) high.

In spite of the speed of the app, Tisen stopped his happy mode trot as soon as I stepped out in front of him and held up my phone. The other problem was that all 45 images were just as out of focus as the 2 I’m posting. When I just now opened the app to check the settings, I ended up with 12 images of my computer before I could hit the “stop” button. But, I did switch it to autofocus mode so next time I launch it, the focus will hopefully be improved.

Perhaps the only problem is that the app is faster than I am?

Dog Dependence Day

Posted by dkrashb on July 7, 2013

This is how I found Tisen, Twiggy and Pat once firecrackers started going off

For about a week before the 4th of July this year, I saw admonishments to keep dogs indoors during fireworks from at least a half-dozen places. The pet supply store where we buy Tisen’s food had signs up and posted regularly on Facebook. McKamey Animal Shelter, the place from whence Tisen came also posted regularly on Facebook. And beyond that, at least 3 or 4 friends were posting articles about the importance of keeping dogs inside and the increase of dogs who run away on the 4th because the fireworks are so terrifying to dogs.

I can only imagine what fireworks must be like for a dog. Some estimate a dog’s hearing to be 4x that of a human’s plus dogs hear a much broader range of sound than human’s can. According to one website, the reason dogs bark at vacuum cleaners is because of the very annoying high-pitched noises they make that humans cannot hear.

Tisen was pretty calm on the bottom of the puppy pile

One of the many dogs we took in over the years came to us following the 4th of July fireworks. We actually found her about a week after the fireworks were over. She was wandering alone in the wooded ravine we lived in, an adorable Boxer lost and extremely happy to meet new friends. Especially new friends with food.

She came home with us with an exuberance few breeds can duplicate–boxers have endless enthusiasm. She had a tag that indicated she was microchipped, but when we called the number, they were closed for the weekend. When my husband was able to reach them on Monday, they could only provide the name and number for the vet where the tag was issued. It was a vet in Pennsylvania. When my husband reached the vet’s office, it turned out it was one of the vet’s dogs who was living in Columbus with his son who was attending the Ohio State University.

We were able to reunite the energetic boxer (who we had taken to calling Roxy, although that didn’t turn out to be her name) with her family about a week and a half after she had escaped from a fenced yard during the fireworks. Her owners were so happy they brought us a plate of cookies.

I’m pretty sure that kid never left a dog outside alone during fireworks again.

First attempt to capture fog rising from Lookout Mountain with iPhone

Since Twiggy’s parents were attending a BBQ early in the evening on the 4th and we were going to a party later that evening, we did a dog sitting trade. Twiggy hung out with us for a couple of hours while her mom and dad were socializing and Tisen hung out with Twiggy’s family for quite a few more hours while we did the same. The dogs piled on Pat when the first firecrackers went off.

As a general rule, I don’t share photos from private parties, but I did attempt to capture the fog rolling off Lookout Mountain in the background. Unfortunately, it was a bit too dark for the iPhone.

Second attempt–the ridge in front of the fog kept getting clipped

Keep your fur-friends safe this Fourth of July (journalstar.com)

Sunset and the iPhone

Posted by dkrashb on July 6, 2013

The strong blue streak going skyward on the left side is what initially caught my eye

I have been shooting with my iPhone much more often since being asked for tips on how to take better photos with the iPhone. One of the areas that I have not been particularly satisfied is low-light images. They get extremely grainy and the dynamic range is quite limited.

However, when I happened to see the sky do something cool the other day, I had a choice. I could run inside, grab my DSLR and tripod, run back out and hope I hadn’t missed it. Or, I could pull my iPhone out of my pocket and do the best I could. Call me lazy, but I went for the second option.

In the few moments between shots, the streak started to spread

I used the Camera! app rather than the default Camera app (the only difference in the name is the “!”, but there are many feature differences). If I would have had a panoramic view from where I was standing, I might have tried the standard Camera app’s panoramic capability, but what was worth shooting fit into the frame, so shooting panoramic seemed unnecessary.

I chose the Camera! app because of its ability to separate the focusing point from the exposure point. You can tap the screen to select where you want to focus and then use a second figure to select a different area that you want to expose for. It’s slightly helpful in scenes like this with strong contrasts. However, slightly is the operative word. Using the dark areas for exposure blows out the sky. Using the sky clips the foreground. By picking something halfway in between, you can sometimes get something better, but in this case, I allowed the darker areas to be underexposed–they weren’t very interesting anyway.

Within 5 minutes, the effect had pretty much disappeared–good thing I didn’t run for my DSLR

The images right out of the camera didn’t have the brilliance of the actual scene. I was able to increase the saturation slightly to get it closer to reality, but the blue of the sky started to move to cyan. One of the challenges with iPhone photography (especially in low light) is that it needs post-processing, but because of the lower resolution, jpeg format, and graininess in low-light situations, adjustments can only be minimal before noise, pixellation, and general ickiness set it. Less is more.

That said, I’m still happy I pulled out my iPhone because the interesting streaks shooting skyward disappeared pretty quickly–I would still have been unzipping my tripod bag had I tried to run for the DSLR.

When I went back in to sit down and blog, I had a little trouble finding a place on the sofa. Tisen was occupying 50% of an 6’ long couch. Pat and I compressed ourselves into the other 3 feet. This isn’t a great shot (another iPhone grab), but you can just see my shoulder next to Pat who is leaning over Tisen in order to create enough room for me to type. We just couldn’t stand to wake Tisen to get him to make room–he was snoring quiet contentedly.

Trying to fit on the sofa to blog without waking Tisen

Bridge and Heron

Posted by dkrashb on July 5, 2013

Not nearly as exciting as when the bridge was fully open

About a week or so ago, I was out walking both Tisen and Twiggy when I missed a once-a-year shot. Walking Tisen and Twiggy together gets a little tricky at times. Twiggy likes to lead. Not just Tisen, but me, too. She likes to decide where we’re going and when we’re going there. When we disagree with where she wants to go, her claws extend much like a cat’s, except that she possesses some superpower that allows her to drive them into concrete. She then leans with her body at what is often a 45 degree angle against her harness and demands that everyone goes the direction she wants to go.

Tisen is somewhat oblivious to her demands. If he catches a scent in the opposite direction, he goes towards it without regard for me, Twiggy, or the fact that he’s got a collar pulling against his neck. I sometimes worry that he would strangle himself before he would realize he was the one causing it.

The gap is no longer even visible

When Twiggy goes one way and Tisen goes another, the human who happens to be in the middle ends up doing what could be called the “Scarecrow,” but with very straight arms. On days when both dogs are particularly adamant about the direction they want to go, it’s more like being on a medieval rack.

I have been working with the dogs to try to prevent this problem. I’ve gotten Tisen to return to me when I make a certain sound and Twiggy to understand that we’re going to turn when I want to turn unless there’s something particularly tempting in the direction she’s determined to go.

But on this particular morning, as we made our way through the park, I suddenly got a view of the Market Street bridge and realized it was fully open. It’s a rare type of draw bridge that’s opened and closed by a counter-weight system. I don’t recall what it’s called, but it’s pretty cool. It’s opened about once a year for inspection, but this was the first time I’d ever seen it fully open.

Shooting with my iPhone doesn’t allow for close-ups, but you can see the Heron just right of 12 o’clock at the top of the tree

Unfortunately, as I wrestled my iPhone out of my pocket and juggled it and two leashes to get my password entered, Twiggy spotted another dog in a different direction. At the same time, Tisen spotted the same dog and decided he wanted to stay bolted to the spot he was currently standing on.

I cajoled and whistled and made my “come to me” noise to no avail. Finally, the other dog moved far enough away that Twiggy and Tisen would listen to me again. I got them down the path to where I could get a decent shot (although not all the way to my destination) just in time to catch the last few feet of the bridge closing.

I was not a happy dog walker. When I turned, a Great Blue Heron was perched at the very top of a nearby tree. I’m certain he was laughing at me.

Look carefully–you can see the heron laughing at me

Dogs and Fireworks

Posted by dkrashb on June 19, 2013

Dogs are frequently afraid of fireworks. I would venture to guys that dogs fall into two categories: Those who are completely oblivious and those who think the world is coming to an end. Tisen does not like fireworks. Nor does Twiggy, who is visiting with us again while her mom and dad are on vacation.

Tisen seems somewhat embarrassed about his fear of fireworks. Like he knows he’s supposed to be a big tough boy and not be afraid of loud noises. Instead of whining, howling, or barking, which would only draw attention to his cowardice, he hides. But if you happen to look in on him from time to time, you’ll discover he often has a puzzled look on his face like he can’t understand why his humans are not distraught by all the noise.

I think there is a simple explanation for this disparity in human and dog interpretation of loud noises. I think it’s hearing. While one might speculate that canines have less ability to understand the source of loud noises or to reason as to whether they are in potential danger or not, I really think it comes down to pain. The deep, reverberating booms and high pitched crackles sound so much louder to a dog than to a human, it seems quite possible they are in physical pain.

This being my theory, I was doubly surprised when I spent the entire length of the Riverbend fireworks out on the balcony of the common room (where dogs are not allowed) and Tisen remained parked by the front door waiting for my return instead of hiding under the sofa, desk, or Daddy. Twiggy cuddled with Daddy, leaving Tisen to fend for himself as the stalwart guard patiently awaiting the return of Mommy. I felt pretty guilty when I got home and found him still waiting for me.

I wonder if he is more afraid of losing Mommy than he is of fireworks? This also made me feel more guilty getting on a plane the following morning.

Tisen braving it out at the door

Storms

Posted by dkrashb on June 14, 2013

Tisen posing on the top of the sledding hill with the bridge over the wetland in the background

Although we seem to have largely skipped right over spring, we didn’t skip over the storms. I’m not sure if we’re still having spring storms or if we’ve moved into summer ones, but we’ve had some doozies lately.

Now days, Tisen usually sleeps through storms–provided they’re not too loud. Before we moved, the rain would hit the roof and echo through the metal sheeting, creating a drumming sound so loud that if it was raining really hard, I had trouble hearing if I was on a conference call. That is one of the perks of our new location–unless there is thunder and lightening, the rain can only be heard hitting the windows.

But there has been thunder and lightening. In fact, one day earlier this week, a storm broke loose with what seemed like almost constant thunder and lightening. Because I was on a conference call with noise-blocking earbuds in my ears, I really didn’t notice the thunder until Tisen suddenly wiggled his way between my chair and my desk and managed to wind himself around my feet. I couldn’t figure out what had come over him until I took out an ear bud and looked out the window.

Tisen hiding from thunder

I had to attempt to photograph him wound around my legs. However, it was a bit challenging with my iPhone shooting from straight above. When you look at this photo, the thing in the top left is my knee. Directly under Tisen’s nose, if you look carefully, you can see my foot with Tisen’s legs over it. Just below his nose, you can see one wheel of my desk chair. You can also see the various items under my desk like power cords, a printer, and a basket of office supplies, that Tisen wedged himself between in order to have physical contact with my foot.

I don’t know exactly what makes Tisen feel safe when he is in contact with my foot. I’m certain that if I’d been sitting on the sofa he would have been up in my lap trying to press himself against me as if he was trying to get inside my skin. However, he made due with my foot since my lap was wholly unavailable.

Tisen preparing to go out

Tisen has other ways of finding comfort. He doesn’t like to leave without a toy. Sometimes it seems he holds his toy more tightly than others. I’m not always able to figure out what exactly makes him nervous. I know large crowds make him cling to his toy more tightly, even in hot weather. But on the day I took pictures of him with Pink Elephant up on the sledding hill, I’m not sure what inspired him to carry Elephant all the way to the top.

Perhaps indicating confidence, he’s left a trail of toys lately. He dropped Moose one day and Duck the next. Two days later it was Duck again. It’s a good thing our neighbors know whose door to leave stray toys in front of!

Another pose on top of the sledding hill

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Category Archives: Dogs