Circular Logic (return of)

Dog Blog Post #311: I'd love to blame it on the Easter holiday (although I'm not totally sure that would be fair) but there is no Trick of the Week this week.

There is a trick that I'm working on, and have been for a few weeks now, but Henry just isn't reliable enough for me to mark it DONE. I tested him (again) tonight, and while I got it the first two times, I foolishly asked for a third and he looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.

(sigh)

My best guess is that he's cueing off something other than what I think the cue is, as he clearly wants to do what I want, he just finds himself not knowing what that thing is, and so he starts throwing other (similar) behaviors.

But we'll keep trying! It will be well worth the effort, once he truly gets it. :)

On to the Daily Shoot assignment:

Make a photograph that features a circle today.

I had totally forgotten we had done this one before, until I went to type in a title and it auto-completed for me.

Well, fancy that.

For the record, here's what I did last time around...

... which is probably more aesthetically pleasing than what I did this time around - at the top of the post and down below...

Although this is supposed to be dog training blog, and showing two dogs not eating cookies should be more impressive than just one. :)

For the record, both of these were shot with the camera on the big tripod. The "winning" shot (up top) was taken with the tripod down low, using the 10 second timer, with the dogs set and empty plates in place, and me crouched on the ground and reaching through the tripod legs to drop the cookies on the plate a few seconds before the picture was taken.

(While Zachary is pretty nearly 100% reliable (which means I haven't seen him break in ages, but realizing no dog is perfect!) Henry remains a work in progress, and with a temptation this large, and knowing a re-shoot wasn't really practically (too many calories), I was being extremely cautious!)

The higher-up shot was taken by putting the cookies on the plates, putting my foot over Henry's cookie, getting everything set, moving my food aside, and shooting the picture.

Henry was actually a very good boy, and only tried for the cookie once (the first time I put it on the plate) and after I subsequently barked "Leave it!", he never tried again.

(That said, I wouldn't trust him if I was out of range, and certainly not out of sight, as I would Zachary!)

And just to fill up space, here's an alternate Scavenge Challenge picture (combination Unusual Kitchen Tool and Tacky Knick-Knack). I put Mr. Hedgehog on the cutting board, cutting board on the entry tiles, then opened the front door to let the afternoon sun shine on him.

... and a Pincushion flower. Darned wind, will have to try this one again on a calmer day, but the idea is to find a flower in sun (late afternoon, in this case) that is backed by shade, in much the same arrangement as Mr. Hedgehog above...

If you can't get 100% black, but you can get it really close, you can usually lower the brightness and/or up the contrast to get rid of any faint shadings of color.

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