Life on the Leash

Sumner met his first fish face-to-face on Sunday. (Tom and my Dad went ice fishing.)

What did he think of the stinky, flip-flopping bass? Was it something to eat, or something to play with?

A tentative lick sealed the deal.

Definitely food.

(No, we didn’t let him eat it.)

Hey, don’t forget to check out the Puppy Bowl this Sunday on Animal Planet!

I’ll post my behind-the-scenes picture-fest on Monday. And if you happen to be near a computer this Sunday night at 10:05 EST, log on to www.wgnradio.com and listen to me live on Steve Dale’s radio show, Pet Central. We’re going to chat about my role in the Puppy Bowl, answer a few reader questions, and talk about – gasp – my new book!

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s not all dogs all the time here at LOTL. I did a little photo shoot with our friends and their newborn over the weekend:

Melman, their dog and my former student, waited patiently for his turn in the spotlight. Sort of … we tried to do a family portrait and he made his feelings clear, taking the center spot right in front of bebe:

Despite what looked like sibling rivalry, Melman’s person told me that he’s doing a great job adjusting to the new human in the house. She read “Living with Kids and Dogs … Without Losing Your Mind” (written by my dear friend Colleen Pelar) and is using the tips with great success.

Melman finally got his turn at the end of the photo shoot, and reminded me once again of what a natural model he is:

He pulled me aside before I left and said, “Next time, my pictures come first, got that?”

The first time I worked with Kona she was way too wiggly to allow me to fully capture her cuteness. Each time I got down on the floor to try to snap a picture, she’d come right up to me and say, “Why hello! I’m going to jump on you now!” I managed to grab a few cute shots at our first session, but I could tell that Kona has star quality, so I brought my camera to her fourth lesson on Saturday and I think I hit the cuteness jackpot.

Now I can ask her to “sit” and she says, “Yup, I know how to do that!”

Ditto for “down.”

But then something funny happened … her “down” morphed into this:

Yes, I laughed and encouraged the adorable but slightly obscene position. It’ll disappear soon enough.

But I’m not sure I want it to …

Kona is an otter puppy!

Heidi the 2-year old GSD freaked me out at our first meeting.

She greeted me at the front door with a ferocity that made me take a step back and ask her person, “Is there any danger of a bite here?” (I’m gun-shy because I was once bitten right after I’d entered a new client’s house to work with a dog who was aggressive with “tall men in hats.” And dog trainers, apparently.)

Turns out, Heidi was a love, all silly, sweet and playful. I was there to help with her front door greetings (go figure!) and leash surliness.  Her people had already done a fair amount of work with her, so I had a feeling that things would go smoothly.

We took two different approaches with her front door stuff: we worked on polite, non-jumpy greetings if she knew the guest coming to her house (in which case her greetings were typically of the over-exuberant “May I plant my paws on your shoulders?” variety), and we attempted an automatic  “go to your crate” for scary unknown people like delivery guys (where her greetings were the “I’m-very-very-big-and-barky-so back-off!” type.)

How did she do?

She rocked it. But that’s no surprise, right GSD folks?

That photo shoot I did with the magnificent Tim Coburn? The pics are all done, and I’m thrilled with them! He took about 50,000 images, and among the decent ones were a variety of really silly shots.

This one was from the very beginning of the session. That’s James giving me a final touch-up. Sumner is wondering if James is friend or foe.

Sum, he’s fixing my hair and making me look good – totally friend!

Sumner was a trooper, but he needed his fair share of ego stroking. Here I am telling him how hot he looks:

Here’s a rejected outfit … Tim said I looked like one of the Indigo Girls in this get-up. Plus the boot cut jeans needed boots, not loafers.  Once again, Sum is not sure about James. (Remember Sum’s Quatto? You can see it on his chest in this shot, right below my hand.)

This was at the very end of the day. Can you tell there was a comedian behind the lens?

(The photo for my book is very close to the one above, minus the gaping maw and sleeping dog.)

Sum looks pretty relaxed in all of these photos, but you should see the millions of shots where he’s panting so hard that his tongue is nearly touching the ground. He zonked out for the rest of the day once we returned home. He thought he wanted to be a model, but the reality was too much for him.

Hooray! I got to meet Leroy yesterday!

Super-powered kitten cuteness! I could have watched that little guy all morning. We tried to get a family portrait, but that wasn’t happening:

The pups were willing, but Leroy had other things on his mind:

Meanwhile, Lilly the resident cat watched from the sidelines.

“Whatever.”