Life on the Leash

I love quirky handmade jewelry. There are a few designers I adore, like Keeley Smith (I buy a small piece in Nantucket every summer, and I’m budgeting my way to her “Little Things” charm necklace), St. Kilda, Jessica Hicks (another Nantucket designer), and Pyrrha. I discovered Pyrrha a few years ago, long before they garnered the attention of the glossy mags and the venerable New York Times. I bought their dog pendant … it’s a subtle way to display my love of dogs.

Last month, Pyrrha’s announced a little contest … “Take a photo and show us how you wear your Pyrrha jewelry.” Two seconds after I received the newsletter with the announcement I was outside taking this shot:

(The necklace was too small so I had to use tape to extend the length – you can see a piece of it sticking up on Sum’s right side.)

Well, we won! I get to select one of their new fall pendants (Sum left it up to me – he doesn’t have a preference). It was a tough decision (9 choices, many of them including dogs), but I went with this one:

The text translates to “Lead, but not with force.”

That sounds like an awfully good credo for a dog trainer, doesn’t it?

We had a ball at Nellie’s 4th Barkday party.

I decided that it was time to update my web photo. The one I’ve been using for the past few years, seen here, is outdated now. The hair is longer, the wrinkles are more prevalent, and that dog in the photo? Yeah, she’s not even mine! (Thanks for letting me borrow her, Mark and Nicolle!)

Rather than spend tons of dough on a professional photo like I did last time, I decided to try the DIY approach. I enlisted my husband, Tom, to be the photographer, and set up a backdrop in our work room. We did a test run a few days before the actual shoot, just to make sure that it would look semi-decent:

(Tom says that I look like Travis Tritt or Kid Rock when I wear my hair like that with a hat. Thanks, Honey, that’s sweet.)

We did the shoot after a family party a few months ago … I rarely wear make-up these days, so we took advantage of the fact that I was already gussied up. As you can see, the boys were thrilled to participate:

We had a bunch of technical difficulties before we hit our stride. Camera-shy dogs, a too-small backdrop, the heat from the lights, and Tom’s learning curve with my camera made it rough going for the first few frames:

I tried a variety of poses. The guys were feeling rather silly when I sat on the floor next to them:

I stood up and gave them a little pep talk, then turned to Tom and asked him to make some noise to get the guys to look at the camera.

He obliged with a realistic-sounding bark. Too realistic. Sumner barked back at him …

Which made Zeke get sassy …

And it continued like that for a while. The guys either looked miserable, or ridiculous. Oh, and then there were the ridiculous shots of me … Ms. November called. She wants her pose back:

140 photos later, we managed to snap a decent shot for the “about” section of this web site (though the guys look less than thrilled).

My super-clever new student Brody the shepherd mix has assets that you just can’t miss:

Hello, Ears!

They’re adorable, wouldn’t you agree?

Brody was the perfect model for me this morning … I did my requisite squeaky noises and he gave me tons of cute faces:

He caught on to the game after a while and was all, “Ok, Lady, whatever.”

I love to see former clients from way back when … no matter how many years have passed, they always seem to remember me. That was definitely the case when I showed up on Hunter’s front step this morning, a canine client I worked with five years ago. He gave me a typical barky greeting for a few seconds, then he stopped and seemed to say, “Wait a sec … I totally know you!

“You’re that hot dog lady! Welcome back, it’s so good to see you! Any treats for me?”

I had to break it to him that I was actually there for his new little sister, Faith.

Hunter had to hang out in a different room while we worked with young Faith, and he let us know that he wasn’t happy about it. When Faith’s lesson was over we brought Hunter out and he followed me around with a big grin on his face.

He cracked me up. I tried getting a different expression out of him by making high-pitched noises (one of my tricks for capturing that cute “huh?” head tilt) and he never stopped smiling. Faith, on the other hand, gave me the goods:

It was great to reconnect with my old friend!

The folks over at DogPause got in touch and asked me to check out their new bowl, which is clinically proven to slow down fast-eating chow hounds. Back in the day, the only way to slow down a voracious eater was to put a large rock in the bowl, which wasn’t a safe or sanitary option. Rapid eating can lead to a host of problems (vomiting, gas, and bloat, to name a few), so we were more than happy to test out this helpful product. Zeke is a speed demon with his regular bowl, and he’s done his fair share of post-meal gagging.

I loved the cheerful colors and cute dog in the middle of the bowl. Zeke was immediately intrigued:

I measured out their standard portion and spread it throughout the “slow zone” sections in the bowl, added a few bananas and a little water (because that’s how we roll), and stood back to watch the magic.

Zeke loved it. It looked like he was trying to “figure out” the bowl, almost like it was one of those treat-dispensing toys he loves to play with. Very cool.

It took him quite a while to work through his entire meal, and once he finished, he kept going back to the bowl to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything.

Sumner is a slow eater to begin with, so his meal lasted and lasted and lasted.

He opted to remove pieces of kibble from the bowl every so often and eat them off the floor.

It looked like a lot of work!

Zeke hovered nearby, ready to help if the meal proved too difficult for Sumner to consume.

The final word on the DogPause Bowl? Two paws up! I liked the sleek design (which is easy to clean), and I liked that Zeke and Sumner had to work a little harder to eat their meals. It seemed like the work element transformed their regular mealtime into a challenging puzzle, which is a good thing for those super-fast eaters. The only possible drawback is that the bowl shape might be difficult for squish-face dogs to navigate … the slow zones are deep and narrow, so the flat-face dogs might not be able to reach all the way down.

That said, I think that the DogPause Bowl is a great way to slow down unhealthy speed-eating!