Life on the Leash

Wednesday morning, 7:45AM.

It’s raining, I’m navigating poopy DC streets, and I’m 15 minutes late to my new client (which makes me super-grumpy. I hate being tardy, particularly for a first session).

The front door opens and, ta-da, there’s Winston:

The combination of this super-adorable beagle/dachshund mix (Beagshund? Dachsle?) and his super-cool people turned my sour mood around in a matter of minutes.

Handsome Charleston joined us at the end of the session.

“How are the dog-cat relations going?” I asked. Winston then demonstrated his lack of impulse control, which answered my question.

That said, he’s a great dog in a wonderful household. I see more sunny Wednesday mornings ahead of me.

Being a first-time dog owner is scary. There’s so much to do, so much to know, so many ways to screw up.

Sometimes I see the worst of “new puppyitis” … like the young dog with too much household freedom too soon, the puppy spending 8 hours a day in the crate (”But she can hold it all day!”), and the owner driven to tears from the overwhelming responsibilities of caring for a puppy.

Happily, I usually see the opposite, and that was the case with Bodhi and her people. They’re first-timers doing everything right. Hooray!

They’ve done tons of reading (which can also backfire – always consider your source!), watched a certain DVD, and listened to their gut.

And Bodhi is thriving!

Joker the Wheaten was on point at our first session early Saturday morning …

Handsome guy, right?

I have to wrap my head around his name, though … “Joker” sounds a little sinister to me. And the guy was anything but!

I met with a charming pooch posse on Saturday.

There was Duncan:

Spencer:

Murphy:

and Murphy’s sister, Lola:

I was there to help address Lola’s “escalating behavior” at the dog park. We had planned to do a quick Q&A and then hit the park, but a few minutes after meeting Lola I decided it wasn’t necessary.

The poor girl was a tangle of nerves in a dog suit.

My guess was her less than social behavior at the dog park was a confidence issue, coupled with some health problems, and I didn’t want to subject her to the mid-morning crush of dogs just to prove my theory.

Some dogs dig the park, some dogs don’t. It’s important to recognize when a dog would prefer to opt out …

We lucked out yesterday. Though the forecast called for rain, Mother Nature held off until after we’d finished shooting outside for the day.

That said, we did have our outdoor challenges … the noisy neighborhood landscapers and seemingly non-stop airplanes required me to do many a retake.

I did my best to roll with it.

Having James around as my hair and make-up guru certainly helped. Here we are in “prom pose”:

Resident dog Diz did a fine job on his segment. He watched his performance on the monitor, proclaimed it “flawless” …

… and then took a well-deserved nap.

Murray was perfection, of course.

It was a very fun day, and hopefully our enjoyment of the process will be evident in the segments. I’ll give a heads-up when they go live.

I’m off to tape some new training videos for Petside.com tomorrow. (Weather, please cooperate!)

Once again, I’ve got an exceptional canine cast on board. Dodger, Burger, and Seamus are my costars, along with Magnificent Murray.

(Now that Murray knows that I’m the Treat Lady, he does this every time I sit on the ground to try to take a picture of him:)

Ever wonder why many of my dog shots are taken looking down at the pups? That’s why.