Life on the Leash

Say what you will about the silliness of dressing dogs up and taking pictures of them (don’t listen, William Wegman), you simply can’t deny the charm of this old layout from Vogue, called “Puppy Love” and shot by Bruce Weber.

The blushing bride:

The proud groom:

From left, the bride’s aunt from Paris, groom’s son from first marriage, the society columnist, the bride’s ex-boyfriend, drunken ushers, the bride’s spinster sister, the banquet table, the uninvited guest (!!)

The groom’s ex-girlfriend (love this shot):

Mother of the bride:

The happy couple:

Uh-dorable, yes?

Sumner’s droopy lips (aka “flews”) are amazing. I have a bad habit of gripping them at the very ends and giving them little “love squeezes.” (Which he probably translates as “annoyance squeezes.”) I just can’t help it!

I’ve been trying to capture how they flop around when he runs, but thus far I’ve been unsuccessful at photographing the full gyrations:

It’s almost as if he doesn’t let it all hang out when he sees me with my camera.

On a completely unrelated note, I found this spider with boxing gloves in my sink yesterday. Anyone know what he is? I liberated him from our bathroom to the tree just outside our front door. Be free!

It took three long weeks before little Pumpkin figured out that I wasn’t at her house to cause bodily harm.

Some dogs are nervous about me at the beginning of the first lesson, but by the second they’re normally under my hot dog scented spell. Not Pumpkin, though.

At week three I was depressed and ready to give up. I’ve got major puppy mojo – what was the problem here?  Why didn’t Pumpkin like me? The good news was that she was able to perform her training exercises with her people after I’d left, so it wasn’t as though we were completely wasting our time. I’d demonstrate the exercises using a coffee table (man, that coffee table was great at “stay”!), then step back into the shadows and coach from a distance.

The magic didn’t happen until week four. Suddenly, Pumpkin decided that I was a-ok, and working with me was actually fun. At our final session she gave me the ultimate compliment … the burrow:

Whew! She likes me, she really likes me!