Attraction

Dog Blog Post #287:This week marked the beginning of Family Dog II class for Henry. As before, I went wondering if this was going to be the week that he realized he's a Real Boy, or if I would get to enjoy sweet puppy-hood just a little bit longer...

... and it seems I get another week of puppy-hood!

Henry was a very good boy, despite this being the loudest class yet. There were BIG barks, and squeaky-squeak-squeaky barks, and bark-bark-bark-bark-bark barks...

Oh, my!

Henry wasn't impressed by the racket, but he was overwhelmed or put off by it either. We worked on the usual sits and downs and stays, oh-my. And he was very good. We worked on attention and focus, and little Sit-n-Stare was very good. Then we worked on polite sitting while greeting "strangers".

Did I mention he was very good at attention and focus?

Yes, my friendly boy failed Polite Greetings 101.

Sitting while meeting people just isn't his thing. I do need to rethink how to explain this to him, however, because by the end he was peering at the people from behind my leg - as though the reason for not getting to meet them was because they were scary, instead of being because he was standing up.

So I broke down and let him say "hi" to the young girl who was our last "stranger". Henry was most relieved to find someone he could meet, the girl seemed happy, he did keep all four on the floor, and I'm left to ponder how better to explain this to him for next next week.

In addition to doing normal class things (and instead of working on a new skill as I listened to the instructor) I worked on refreshing the old ones. So I frequently asked for shakes, head-down, head-tilt (getting much better on that one!) etc. This is in addition to the two brand new tricks we did work on (one that Wendy started him on, and one that I just stumbled across by accident) plus the one I already been working on.

This means that if things turn out well, I might actually get somewhat, if not all the way, caught up this week! (Stop by Tuesday to find out!)

On to The Daily Shoot assignment:

Illustrate attraction in a photograph today.

Having just had "dog class", the first thing that popped into my head was how Wendy refers to treats and cookies as "nose magnets" when she explains luring (vs. capturing and shaping.)

So today I pulled out my tripod, strolled out into the overgrown jungle of a backyard, and snapped some pictures of the boys being "attracted" to the nose magnets.

This was almost as easy as the dog-bowl show from a few days ago!

Editor's Note #1: Yes, houndstooth, I think you are right. Yesterday's blue background was probably too pale to get "pop". I tried it with purple today, and while I think I got more depth, I also lost some of the sweetness.

This photography stuff is much harder than it looks! :)

Editor's Note #2: Dog Blog Post #287? Wasn't the last post #282???

Why, yes it was! That's mighty observant of you. It seems that, despite my best efforts, I periodically get off count... probably because I don't number the Wordless Wednesday posts, and silently counting up by one seems to be beyond my abilities. Therefore, I periodically Blogger how many posts I have, and update my count accordingly.

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