Crazy Sand Dance

The following is a demonstration of the "sports" continuous setting on my new camera. Gwyn decided to show off her crazy sand dance to illustrate:

On one of our longer walks we end up at a relative's house where we can walk on the dock and on the strip of beach beside it. When we step off the dock into the sand she goes into whirling-dervish mode. This is a rather complicated maneuver as she's still on leash....but she's just about perfected it. All of the above were shot in the span of a couple of seconds.

Greyhound Silliness...

...or, "Beware the Beachball."

I know. I haven't been around in a bit. Once again I've allowed time to slip by with no posts. I could give you all the 'standard' reasons. I could tell you I've got a new project up my sleeve that I'm not quite ready to share yet. Or, I could just pick up and go on.

You really have to watch out for these:

So, Gwyn and I were walking this morning. She's recently been a bit restricted on account of she seemed to have pulled a muscle or something. She seems fine now but wasn't sure I was going to let her go on a full walk. She was intent on making it around to see if Sammy was home (sadly, he was not) and was even ignoring squirrels...ignoring almost everything...until [insert dramatic 'dunh dunh dunh'] the beach ball.

At least, that's how Gwyn saw herself. She was protecting me. I mean, really--what the heck is a beach ball doing in a yard? Up against some bushes??? It was clearly up to no good! She huffed. She growled. She raised hackles. Then she barked at it. For good measure.
I felt much safer.

I leave you with this thought for the day ('borrowed' from a facebook post):

National Dog Day

Hi. And welcome to National Dog Day. As I am running seriously behind schedule this a.m. this post will be continued later on tonight....for now, I leave you with a preview:

That's right! It involves turtles!!!

Fruit Run

Under the category of Gwyndiculousness, allow me to share one of Gwyn's favorite summer games: playing with pears! We have a pear tree in the back yard. We've never actually eaten any of the pairs from it....but Gwyn has. :D She discovered this game last year. The first time she did it, I had to Google to make sure that pears weren't toxic for dogs! They make wonderful toys....you can do zoomies around the yard with them, and then lie down and eat them at the end!

 I know that some of the pears that have become hound toys have fallen off the tree prematurely, but I have a strong suspicion that some of them have had a little help!

Toy Thief

This is the face of a thief! A toy thief! She may look innocent...guileless, in fact....but looks can be deceiving.

On a recent trip into PetSmart I saw a stuffed toy turtle that I just "had" to buy for my girlfriend's dog, Abby. My friend recently moved to Iowa for a number of months and I thought it would be nice for a 'care package.' But I hadn't made it to the post office yet. Silly me had dropped the toy into a bag that contained some of my crafting supplies. While getting ready for work, I suddenly heard a very enthusiastic squeaking coming from the living room. What's this? It doesn't sound like the fox (Gwyn's previously-favorite toy!)! Sure enough, the sneakyhound had *very* *quietly* stuck her sneakysnout into my bag and removed the toy! (My fault for leaving said bag on the floor by the couch...) She was having so much fun, I couldn't deny her...plus she'd already slobbered on it. (Gwyn would like me to note here that greyhounds are regal animals and NEVER slobber!) At any rate, I did have to take it away for about 18 seconds so that I could remove the tags before returning it to her....that's what the top picture is...her expression waiting for me to return it.

Gwyn likes turtles! ;D (Maybe not as much as Buster, but that's a story for another day.)

I'm tired from playing, but I'm not gonna' let Turtle go!

This was actually taken before I could get away to take the tags off.

Truth in Advertising

It was entrapment!!!!

Exhausted!

Best Toy Ever! (part the second)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the Kong Extreme Flyer is the *best* (outside) toy ever! At least in Gwyn's not-so-humble opinion! And, no, I'm not receiving anything from Kong..they don't even know I said this. I've mentioned that Gwyn's first Kong Flyer was given to her when I took her for her first photo shoot with the wonderful Joe Frazz. It lasted over a year, but I had bought a back-up knowing the day would come...

This is what they look like out of the box:

This is what they look like after a year + of heavy-duty workout. To be fair to Kong, there were times I left it out in the elements...and when it did finally start cracking and tearing away I got the rubber bits that pulled off and took it away so we wouldn't have Gwyn swallowing rubber!

 It leads to great interactive fun, like this:

I've got this, Mom, let 'er rip!

This last one was caught using a super-fast shutter speed...while there's only brief periods of time her view is completely obstructed like this, I sincerely hope she doesn't plow face first into something one of these days!!!

Goofy Girl

Zoomies and Color Boost

I love that my Brit' hound friend refers to the wild running around of her hound as "zoomies." Perfect description! Thanks to the sport continuous mode on my Nikon I am able to capture some great shots with one hand and throw the Kong Frisbee with the other (admittedly not the best throws...but they rarely are!).

 

Built for speed and ready to launch!

 Generally speaking, about the only editing I do of my shots before posting is to crop extraneous background out and to reduce the file size for ease of uploading. I know there's great software out there for amazing editing, but I'm fundamentally lazy (shocking, but true) and would rather get a good shot to start with and not spend a lot of time (time that I'm woefully lacking) messing with fine-tuning on the computer. However this weekend I did start playing with the "color boost" setting on my Nikon software. I was impressed. These are the exact same shots as above except for that one change. Pretty cool, eh? It actually looks like we have lush grass in our backyard. I'm thinking that's way easier than actually planting new grass :D

My latest favorite shot

Here's a few more examples...without color boost:

 

...and with:

 



Funny Kids

Were you about to give up on me? Sorry no posts for a week. Even more wackiness abounds around here, but I'm back and doing the best I can...

Thought this morning I'd share some random pix of my funny kids. The first is proof of Xander's continued (and silly) love of dangling his head upside down when picked up. The photo quality isn't the greatest...took it with the camera on my new smart phone when there wasn't really enough light, but you get the idea.

And speaking of taking pix with the new smartphone, the following demonstrates what happens when you don't respond to his highness quickly enough. I was at the bathroom vanity and Xander wanted to be picked up to eat some noms. He very sweetly (and cutely) sat up on his haunches and put his front paws on my leg and meowed to be picked up. This is what happened when it took me too long to get the phone out and switch to camera mode (I still have the claw marks to show for it):

He still really loves his cube:

Not to be left out, Solana demonstrates her funny face when I caught her yawning, followed by a fun shadow shot:

And then there's Gwyn: