King of the Hill

Dog Blog Post #336: Today's Daily Shoot assignment was:

Make a photograph featuring a fence or a wall today.

I liked both shots, but picked the one above (wooden fence) because it I though it looked a bit better as a square thumbnail.

And while I was out there shooting those, I got these...

... and now it's time for the Blog Hop!

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Old and Rusty

Dog Blog Post #318: Sometimes you just have to admit defeat (for the moment) and move on, and today is one of those days. The Trick of the Week was supposed to be...

Bow

Good grief, how hard could it be. Beau learned learned the basics in a single session!

And Henry is almost there... but he's been almost for several weeks. The missing part is the separation from my hand to his head. As soon as I try to pull my hand away, the rear collapses. He also won't hold it more than a second or two.

What I really wanted was to get him and Zachary bowing at the same time, as Zachary already has a nice bow, but that clearly isn't in the cards anytime soon. So for now, we're moving on (but I'll keep plugging away on it in the background. Who knows, perhaps someday the light will come on.)

In fact, tonight I started the next trick for both dogs (different tricks) and they were learning at blazing speeds. I think they must be happy to move on from "Bow", too!

On to the Daily Shoot assignment:

Make a photograph of something old or aged today.

Yes, I did (briefly) consider getting something genuinely old out, but really, they're dogs, and how many genuinely old things do you want your dog around?

So, I improvised...

This is actually a very old woobie, in woobie years, probably even older than three-year-old Zachary, and it's just as disgusting in person as it looks in the picture. But I can't seem to find one that long (6') and so it remains, long stripped of it's squeakers, but still a canine favorite.

Editor's Notes: Yes, Greyhounds CAN Sit, the Sharks did win! KB mentioned Photoshop, which is very nice, be we somehow lost ours (I know, how do you loose an application on your computer, but somehow we did) so I'm left with my 2004 version of iPhoto that I use for all contrast/brightness/sharpness fiddling, plus a Photoshop-lite app called ImageReady that I use to for minor retouching and to stamp my URL on it

And finally, houndstooth was asking about the black backgrounds. I prefer to get them naturally, just by keeping an eye out for the right conditions, or setting them up using the black velvet background. But in the case of the yellow rose, as I couldn't move the bush (although I did pick a rose that was in the sun with shade right behind it), nor the sun, nor the house, I had to resort to a bit of post-production magic. FWIW: Here's the original (a bit reduced in resolution) but otherwise straight out of the camera...

... and (again) here's what it turned into...



I'm pretty sure that all I did was drag the brightness waaaaay down, with maybe just a touch of contrast added in, and smidgen of sharpness. Too much sharpness would show grainy, and too much contrast would start to look harsh. I'm pretty sure I "stamped" out what remained of the blue sky on the far left.

And finally, the (non-dog) Scavenger Challenge item #5 - "Rusty bits - we all love them. Find one and photograph it artfully."

It actually looks best in lightbox, if you want to click on it, then click on it again once flickr comes up, to see it against a black background.

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Trick of the Week and Motion

Dog Blog Post #304:  This weeks trick both builds on previous tricks, and is another step to greater things...

Touch (with your nose)

This week, during dog class, I brought a palm-sized lid with me, and worked on Henry touching it with his nose during "Wendy's Talking" times. Henry can already touch a target stick with his nose, a mouse pad with his paws, and my hand with his nose, so this was mostly just extending existing behaviors.

What I'm hoping to do is attach a name to the behavior (not there yet) and then transition the lid away from my hand and then eliminate the lid but keep the behavior. The ultimate goal will be to be able to point out an obvious object, tell him to touch it, and he'll do so with his nose.

How cute will that be in a picture!

Not quite sure what my cue is going to be, just something other than Touch or Push (I'm open to suggestions if anyone knows of a good word.)

(Sorry about the bad picture - I didn't think about how it was going to look to the video camera, and while I recorded a half-dozen in a row, most where pictures of Henry's lovely fluffy tail and poofy breaches, and not much else!) 

On to the Daily Shoot, and whew! Finally, an "easy" one - or at least one that doesn't require research, strange props, or setting up "the set".

Illustrate motion in a photograph today.

... and I was fully prepared to take the dynamic duo outside for a game of long ball (at least, as long as I can throw it, which is thankfully less than our not overly long yard! Which is not to say I still haven't managed to bounce it over the fence a few times, but thankfully, just a few, and we have very nice neighbors.)

But it decided to rain.

Or, it decided to think about raining, as the skies darkened and it sure smelled damp, although ultimately very little in the way of precipitation actually occurred.

Anyway, while the outside was trying to make up its mind, I moved the party indoors, set up the tripod at one end of the house, turned on every light in sight, and proceeded to play fetch with Zachary.

I would chuck the Lacrosse ball down the hall (yes, it is heavy, and yes, it does make horrible sounds when it hits things. But my mother doesn't live here, if I break it, I'm already the one who bought it.)

So, I chucked the Lacrosse ball down the hall for Zachary, and then snapped a picture at some point either during the launch or during the return. I had already fixed the ISO at 100, which I hoped would make the camera slow enough to blur moving things, while keeping things everything else as crisp as possible (at least, I think that is how it works.)

I'll let you be the judge of the results. The basic background does seem to be "grain free", and the linen cabinet in the background (home to Mr. Tacky Knick-Knack) appears sharp as well. For reasons I can't explain, Zachary's head is totally crisp, while the rest of him is totally in motion. Henry is in front, being Henry.

Where did my baby go???

You might have picked up on the fact, at the start of all this, that I said I was playing fetch with Zachary. That's not because Henry wasn't in the room, but because Henry is still learning the finer aspects of playing fetch. He has the chase part down, the pickup is clean, and the return is lovely, but he's at the age where, despite clearly wanting to, he can't seem to get the ball out of his mouth.

He's my third golden, and all three have gone through the same phase. Much mouthing of the ball, and head tossing, and head shaking, but it's like they can't seem to figure out how to spit it out. Eventually (10-15 seconds later), he'll manage to let go of it, and then I can throw it again.

You can clearly see Zachary gets frustrated, and at times he looks ready to rip the ball right out of Henry's mouth (but that would be rude, and thankfully Zachary doesn't do rude.) Zachary's solution is to try even harder to get to the ball first, so he can get it back to me as fast as possible, so I can throw it gain. Henry, contents himself with feats of acrobatics (see above) and the joy of chasing Zachary up and down the hall.

Finally, we have the (non-dog) Scavenge Challenge picture - #5: "Cloudscape - sheep in the sky"...

... at least I don't think I've shown that one here. Unlike the daily shoot, I can do several challenge pictures at a time, but I'm just trickling them out here.

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Trick of the Week

Dog Blog Post #266: Here's a classic - every kid's favorite trick to teach their dog...

Shake

And assuming your dog is reasonably gentle, and their nails aren't rough or sharp, this crowd pleaser can be a good way to break the ice between a child and a dog.

The trick (pardon the pun) to this one is getting your dog to move their paw. If you have a naturally pawing dog, you can probably teach this in just a few minutes. I don't remember Beau having any trouble with this one at all.

That said, I tried this a few months back with Henry, and got nowhere. His paws were firmly fixed on the ground, and there wasn't anything I could do, short of lifting one myself, that was going to improve things.

Fast forward a few months, throw in some other tricks that involved paws (touching the mouse pad, standing on the basket) and I found myself with a totally different dog. For once, I actually started early on a trick (ie: last Tuesday) so I wouldn't be rushed, and wouldn't you know, he was shaking like a pro in about 5 minutes.

What did I do? I put a cookie in my hand, made a fist, and held it down by his feet. When he moved his paw out of the way to see what I was doing, I clicked, and treated. Lather, rinse, repeat. Once he was reliably lifting a paw, I started raising my own hand, and shake was born.

Now, on The Daily Shoot assignment...

Make a photograph today that illustrates the idea of freshness to you.

First thought? Water pouring into a dog bowl, with a dog happily lapping the stream. Second though, water all over my floor as I'm so busy trying to get the shot I miss the bowl.

Next

Ah - a freshly opened bag of dog treats. Wait, have you ever smelled a freshly opened bag of dog treats?

Next

Hmmm... smelling... smelling... ah ha! What can be fresher than a freshly washed dog? One snuggled in a towel, blown fluffy dry...

Of course, I had no time, and certainly no inclination, to wash the dog. That's why I have a groomer!

But that didn't mean I couldn't pretend... with "the set"... and my nice new piece of tie-dye fleece - the first of the three fabrics I bought this past weekend.

It results certainly says "Freshness" to me...

... note that the picture at the top of this post is a crop of Zachary in pretty much the same pose as Henry is above. What a handsome devil he is in green, and look how clear his eye came out! I'm seriously stoked about that. :)

(No, I'm not trying to endorse the shampoo - it's just what I had laying about, and I'm pretty sure I have yet to try it!)

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Trick of the Week

Dog Blog Post #258: Once again, I let time slip away. I finished last week's trick on Monday, videoed it, then took Tuesday and Wednesday "off" from trick training because... because... I have no idea why. I just did. Thursday rolls around, and I'm sitting in Family Dog class when I see Henry doing this really cute...

Head Tilt

...thing. It's fairly subtle, but after doing a bit of experimenting I realized I could
 sometimes reproduce it by making soft, high-pitched sounds.

Henry - Before Tilt

Tilt Right

Tilt Left

I spent the rest of my trick time trying to capture (that is, reward) the head tilt when I saw it, and making a variety of goofy noises to get him to do it. After a day or so (we're talking Saturday/Sunday, now) with his head tilting pretty reliable (if still a rather subtly) when I made the right sound, I started adding my own head tilt right before I made a sound, in hopes he would "catch a cue." :)

He's getting there, but I think it's going to take some time to get a really nice big tilt, a task that will be accomplished by shaping, which for me, involves giving bigger rewards for bigger tilts while still giving a least one treat for any tilt.

All this has let me to the several conclusions...

1. I can't afford to waste half the week before starting a trick.
2. Getting a solid cue to a trick is probably not going to happen (for most tricks) in the same week as I teach the trick. In fact, I should probably consider it a two week process - the first week to teach it, and the second week to get a solid cue.
3. Teaching just one trick a week is fraught with danger, and it should probably be a three week process, where I'm starting to teach a trick in week one, perfecting it in week two, and getting a solid cue on it in week three. That means while one trick is getting a cue, one trick is being perfected and posted about here, and one is in the planning/early training mode.

But I'm not sure I can be that organized all year, so we'll see how it goes!

On to the Daily Shoot. Today's assignment was:

Today's theme is red. Red hot? Red paint? Or something else? You decide.

Today's schedule was odd, leaving me only a few moments to get a picture in the waning light of a late afternoon cloudy day. The best of the bunch is at the top of the post. If I had to do it over again, I might try just Henry reaching into the bag, and leave Zachary out.

OR

Get a better (brighter) picture of Zachary looking into the bag (shown below)

Zachary and Bag

Editor's Note: Yesterday, as I was grumbling about the dearth of smiles, Elyse mentioned that Riley smiles too much. Assuming she means Riley sits there with her mouth open, a few things I've tried that actually worked include: blowing toward your dog right before you snap the picture. This assumes you are doing a close up! I also helps if you have just eaten something interesting.

If you haven't eaten anything interesting, but having smelly treats on you (like cheese) then try blowing across the cheese. This usually gets them to close their mouths so they can better sniff what the breeze brings.

Another option is to act like you're going to toss the treats. My boys (counter-intuitively) close their mouths when I'm twitching my fingers like I'm going to toss the treat, then open when the treat goes flying.

If you have good aim, and Riley knows to stay put even after she catches the treat, you can toss the treat, wait for her to catch and swallow (assumes small, easy to gulp treats) then snap the shot immediately afterwards when her mouth will (hopefully) be closed.

And that's about I all know about that!

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Trick 9 and Daily Shoot

Dog Blog Post #251: At last, the trick you have all been waiting for! The trick I promised you a few weeks ago but have yet to deliver on. Ladies and Gentleman - in the Center (and only!) ring we present...

Jump (over another dog)

Much like last week, the problem with this trick wasn't that the parts were hard. One dog lays down, the other jumps over the first. No worries, right?

Wrong.

Not only do we have the "which hand is my hand?" problem (see Trick 8 - Tandem Spin) but now we have the dogs doing different things -and- one is in motion while the other is not.

What was I thinking???

In the end, I think this trick - especially coming on the heals of Tandem Spin - will greatly aid our photography efforts. This reinforces that the dogs should pay attention to "their" hand, as well as that just because your bud is moving, doesn't mean you should be as well.

Note that Zachary is taking on the much harder role here. Yes, I know that it appears like he is just lying there, but trust me, lying around Doing Nothing is (a) extremely counterintuitive to Zachary (b) not nearly as much fun as jumping over something and (c) makes one prone to being hit on the head by their klutzy compatriot.

(Sorry Zach!)

So, how did I teach this? The first part was to get the dogs to focus on the correct hands. That meant feeding Zachary treats from my left hand (held low and out of view of the camera) while feeding Henry from the right hand (while he was generally moving around and being a pest.) The point was not so much to reinforce Henry's pestiness, but to show Zachary that lying around Doing Nothing was a good way to get cookies.

Once they were paying attention to the correct appendage (which didn't take that long coming on the heels of last week's trick) I started tossing treats over Zachary's back - to the side Henry wasn't on - while at the same moment feeding treats to Zachary to get him to stay. As soon as Henry jumped and grabbed his treat, I'd toss one back the other way, meanwhile Zachary got a steady stream of reinforcement for Doing Nothing.

(Most of the head hitting occurred at this point. Thankfully, Zachary is a very forgiving dog, and honestly didn't seem to care - or even notice!)

With repetition, I was able to transform the hand motions into the cues; a fist in front of Zachary = "stay" and a pointing/moving hand to get Henry to jump.

Ta-Da!

(Skeptics will note that Zachary's paws and tail feathers never move in all 4 shots, showing he did, in fact, remain quite still!)

Now, quickly on to the Daily Shoot assignment:

Make a photograph illustrating a sound that catches your ear today.

Since I spent so much time on the Trick of the Week, I won't bore you with the shoot details. For the record, I tried large cookies (all I got were pictures of ears), keys (nothing was in focus), bitey-face (see keys), ringing of the doorbell (they kept looking out the window instead of the door as I hoped) and finally, at long last, the shredding of the paper bags.

(A big time favorite enrichment activity around here!)

I took a lot of bad pictures of them shredding paper bags, and I'm a bit surprised my seldom-used flash didn't burst into flames (hmm... perhaps if Glowing comes around again?) But I eventually got...

Whew!

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Trick 8

Dog Blog Post #244: At last, the trick you have all been waiting for...

Just kidding. But it is one of the Two Dog tricks they have been practicing. This is by far the easier of the two, as it involved a skill both dogs learned very young in life.

Now, now... I'm not cheating in my rules. See, the hard part this week (and bits of last) were to get them to do it together.

And now, without further ado, I present:

Tandem Spin

Wow, did I learn a lot about how (my) dogs think trying to teach this one. First off, the skill itself (spin) is admittedly one of the easiest ones out there. I've always taught it with luring. Have cookie, show it to dog, move arm in a big circle while the dog follows the cookie.

Ta-Da!

Now repeat a few dozen times (with the occasional break to keep the dog from getting dizzy) and you have the basics down.

One would think that to do this with two dogs requires nothing more than, well, two dogs, two cookies, and two arms.

And one would be wrong.

It seems that my boys were conditioned to only notice my right hand for this trick, even when the left has cookies. And so either both were trying to be the right hand dog (and falling over each other in the process) or only the right hand dog would spin, turning this simple trick into a strategic nightmare.

My solution (after spending way too much time thinking I could just "fix" what I had) was to go back and teach each dog to spin, again, paying attention to my left hand. At that point, I could put them together, and each would look at the hand closest to them.

Whew!

On to The Daily Shoot assignment:

Who are you? Make a self portrait today and show the rest of us what you look like.

Ugh. I'm way to self-conscious for this sort of thing, and so I totally wimped out...

... my description for it reads, "To my dogs, at least, I am a hand with cookies..."

© 2011 BZ Training - All Rights Reserved

Trick 7

Dog Blog Post #237: This week's trick is...

Touch (the Target Stick)

This is another good beginner shaping trick. You take an item - mine is a nifty folding target stick, but pretty much anything long, slender enough to hold, and won't put your dog's eye out will do (plastic serving spoon, spatula, wooden yard stick, ....) - and you show it to the dog.

Most dogs, being curious, will sniff, or at least look at the object. You click, treat, and pull the object back. Then you lower it down again. Dog shows interest, click and treat, withdraw object.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Now, I'm a big proponent of the rapid-fire reward. That is, when the dog makes a "big step" in whatever direction I'm heading toward, I'll fire a half-dozen treats, one at a time, and say, "Yes!" I am 100% sure this decreases learning time and increases my dogs enjoyment of shaping.

So the dog is touching the stick, and randomly touches it a few inches closer to the tip than the time before. I say, "Yes!", and 3-6 treats are flicked his way. I continue to give single treats for touching anywhere on the stick, but if it is closer to the tip than the tail, I'll say "Yes!" and give a few extra treats. Over time, I gradually move my "Yes!" window closer and closer to the tip, and gradually stop clicking for touching the stick closer to the tail than the tip.

In just a few sessions, of a few minutes each, Henry was reliably finding and touching the tip of the stick.

Yeah, Henry!

(This is yet another trick that Zachary is quite competent in, and he had a great time showing off to me how well he remembered it!)

On to The Daily Shoot assignment:

Make a photograph featuring strong vertical lines today.

Well, I could try to convince you the pictures below are fine examples of "strong vertical lines" because...

.... because....

... oh, who am I kidding. I had 2 dozen roses hubby had given me for Valentine's Day, and I wanted to take a picture of them with the dogs. It's as simple as that. Technically, the stems do create vertical lines.

So there. :)

Trick 5

If you look closely, you can see the cookie on Henry's muzzle

Dog Blog Post #221: The trick for this week was...

Balance Cookie on the Nose

(Inspired by Morgan over at Tales and Tails)

This was taught using "Zen" - that is, be patient and you will be rewarded! - a fourth training method I hadn't thought of when I had previously listed my main methods as Shaping, Luring, and Capturing. Zen is very useful for teaching a dog to not do something until you tell them to (if you choose to allow it at all.)

For this trick, I started by holding a cookie and approaching Henry's muzzle very slowly. If he reached for the cookie, I pulled it back quickly. I would then try again, and if I could get to that same spot without him reaching, I would very quickly give him the cookie.

If he reached, I would pull it back again, but the following time I would make sure he got the cookie before he reached. I want him to succeed!

The basic idea here is that Doing Nothing gets the cookie.

I find having a clear difference in speed between the placing of the cookie (veeerrrryyyy sllllooooowwwwllllyyyy) and the delivery of the cookie as a reward (quick!) helps the processes along.

By the end of the first session (just a few minutes) I was able to gently touch the top of his muzzle with the cookie. The next day I was able to put it on his muzzle, without letting go. And the day after that I was able to let go and quickly pick it up again.

Beau learned this trick extremely fast, but I found having something for him to focus on helped him to keep his head level, which is necessary for most cookies. Therefore, the cue for this trick is the index finger of my non-cookie holding hand pointing up ("We're Number One") and held at the approximate level where I want his head. Without the finger, Beau's head used to gradually drop, perhaps as he tried to look down at the cookie itself!

Once the cookie is in place, I start pulling back my hands, extending the time (and distance) my hands were away.

Ta-Da!

On to The Daily Shoot:

Make a photograph that features repetition.

This wasn't hard, I just didn't quite capture what I wanted to capture. Looking at what people uploaded (the link above), I feel mine was seriously lacking in creativity and execution. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Since this is supposed to be training blog, I'm going to try to have list a training observation or two in each Daily Shoot commentary. Today's is that getting the dogs to sit next to each other is just as hard as getting them to sit next to the large BBQ. I can certainly wrestle them in place, and they usually stay, but getting them that way is... ugly.

THEREFORE:

The First Skill of the week to be improved on will be getting them to lie side-by-side. I have no idea how I'm going to work on this, but I will.

As for positives? Once IN place, they tended to stay there, and I was able to manipulate their paws and have them leave them where I put them.

I took many shots - both portraits and close-ups - and in the end I uploaded the "paw shot" just because it was a bit different than anything else I'd uploaded.

Trick 4 and Daily Shoot

Dog Blog Post #214: This week's trick came about as a kind of a doodle - something done while one's mind is occupied on something else. It started with me tossing Henry cookies for offering downs in Family Dog class - that is, when he just happened to lay down, as opposed to me asking for it.

As Wendy was talking, and I was listening (really, Wendy, I was!) every time Henry laid down I clicked and tossed him a cookie.

Pretty soon, I noticed he would occasionally dip his head toward the mat. Well, how cute was that!

So I started clicking just for a head dip. At first he would dip just the tiniest bit, but with each click and cookie he grew more confident. When he was confident at one level, I would hold off clicking just bit, and he would often repeat the motion, but with more exaggeration.

"Hey, mom, didn't you see me? Look!"

... and the head dipped lower, and lower, until by the end of class his head was lying flat on the ground.

The rest of the week was just adding a cue and making it reasonably reliable.  I ended up with a cue of a closed fist held down on the surface I want him to put his head on. While I usually use the floor, I have tried it on the ottoman and he knew exactly what I wanted.

So, the featured trick of the week? Hmmm... what to call it? How about:

Look Sad

For those keeping score, the technique I used was a combination of capturing (rewarding the dog for doing something he naturally was doing - at first the down, and then the head bob) plus shaping (to get it all the way to the mat.) That means in the past four tricks, I have used luring, shaping, and capturing - the main ingredients for all the tricks I will be teaching this year.

As for The Daily Shoot for today:

Use hard light that casts sharp distinct shadows in a photograph today.

Wow, was Henry a pain! It seemed like he was either wiggling, trying to play, or just plain getting in the way.

In the end, I had to put him back in the house and just use Zachary.

This clearly shows a deficit in training - and something I'm going to bump up to High Priority. So high, in fact, that I have yet to post the Weekly Worksheet (although I made it yesterday) as I'm thinking of ripping it apart and making a photo-centric one for this week... plus the Trick of the Week, of course!

Anyway, "first alternate" photo was the teak chair slats shadow on Zachary's back. I took a similar one on Sunday for Stripes (but not posted here) which I tried to reproduce today, but the light just wasn't right.

My favorite was the picture below. It is the shadow only of a Hex Ball + Zachary on the BBQ Cover. Who knew the BBQ could come in handy in so many different ways. This is the same cover that made an appearance in the jingle collar Christmas pictures, and created the shadow for the dark background pictures I took Friday.

I tried to get a picture of Henry's tail (as folks who follow here might be surprised to see what it looks like now) but I just couldn't get him where I needed him to get a good shadow.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

You know, I think that's one of the things I like most about The Daily Shoot. Once done, it's done. You can just move on. Tomorrow you get to start over with a clean slate and a new assignment.

Trick 3 and Daily Shoot

Dog Blog Post #206: This week's trick is:

Paws-up

Here's another shaped trick, which turned out to be harder for little sit-n-stare than I would have thought! The idea is simple enough - dog puts front paws on a raised object. I taught this one to Zachary in a few minutes while doing meet-n-greets in front of the library. I used luring in that case, putting the object between him and me, holding a cookie in front of me, and encouraging him to come get it.

Presto!

It was a no brainer.

This time, lacking an object solidly bolted into the ground, I switched to shaping and an upside-down basket. Little sit-n-stare immediately lived up to his nick-name, and sat. And stared. And stared. And sat.

(Yes, it was just as boring as it sounds. He was convinced we were playing "Watch", and that basket between us was irrelevant to the exercise.)

Hmm.... so I started tossing cookies on either side of the basket, to get his little velcro butt off the ground. Worked great. Sort of. He would happily go around the basket and jump over the basket, sniff the basket, nose the basket, etc., but there was no way on God's green Earth that his paw was going to actually touch that basket.

Ever.

I even tried dropping cookies on the bottom of the basket. Happy day! He snarfed them up eagerly, but the paws remained firmly on the ground.

Thus ended day one. And it was not so good.

Day Two - I flipped the basket over to see if I could get paws in the basket. Hit myself on the head for my stupidity at not picking that trick, as he happily put one, and then the other in. Still using shaping, mind you. A click at a time. A click for his head in the basket. A click for a paw raised. A click for a paw in the basket. A click for two in the basket, a jackpot, and thus ended two. And it was a lot better.

Day Three - flipped basket over again, so now it was bottom-side up again. What do you know, little sit-and-stare immediately started putting a paw on the bottom. Yeah!!!

And the rest was easy (as the first should have been!)

As for Zachary, since he already knew this trick, I shaped him to do a lovely heads-up look (away from the cookies) instead of the Vulture Stance you see in little sit-n-stare above. Took about 2 minutes. It was really good!

And finally, The Daily Shoot:

Make a photograph with a soft look today.


Yeah, I know. I gimme if there ever was one.

So first I went for the Studio Look...

... once again, set up in the dining room. While I don't like the lighting, I defy any to tell me it doesn't look soft!

But it just wasn't what I was looking for. Then I saw the sunlight peaking in through the front window, and remembered how nice those have pictures have come out in past.

Grabbing my camera and a dog, I got this:

And finally, at son's request, we have "Henry Fur":

(Zachary's doesn't do soft so much as silky!)