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FUNNY PHOTOGRAPHY
Our no-kill shelter where I volunteer had a fundraiser Saturday - a
professional photographer donated her services to take Christmas pictures of
people and their dogs (they made $1500 from it last year!).
I took the dogs, and was so proud of Bogey. He can be a bit growly and
uncomfortable around other dogs sometimes, but we waited in line over to one
side and he kept his focus on me the entire time.
This could have been a problem since the people behind us had two large bulldogs
- the poor things are bred to have such flattened snouts that they can't breathe
normally without sort of "snorting" through their noses
 .
They can't help it, but sometimes Bogey can't tell the difference between their
normal breathing and growling at him. But he did wonderfully, after glancing at
them a couple times, he ignored them totally.
Sadie, not to be left out, had to be the "class clown" during the photo shoot
 .
The photographer insisted that I sit on the floor with the two dogs in "down"
positions. This is no problem for Bogey, but Sadie has never been trained to
stay in a "down" while I am on the floor.
It's not her fault, but the dog doesn't generalize - she will "down" with me
standing, or even on my knees, but once my butt hits the floor, she assumes we
are playing and gets goofy.
So anyway, here we are, Bogey's down, Sadie's down, and as SOON as I sit, Sadie
flips on her back and flails around like a beached carp! She stretches all the
way out on her back, until she's something like 5 feet long, and grabs the
photographer's tripod leg between her front paws and tries to drag it to her!
With her back feet, she's kicking ornaments off the Christmas tree (plastic,
thankfully), until I finally stand back up and get her under command again.
Then we just about get it under control, when now Sadie's bored and starts
looking around the room at the other dogs and people, instead of facing the
camera. Even after my telling her TWICE not to do this, the photographer calls,
"Sadie!" to get her attention, and of course Sadie gets up and trots over to
her.
What a fiasco! During this whole circus, Bogey is maintaining his down/stay and
looking mildly disapproving. I was really proud of him - and if they'd just let
me position the dogs the way I wanted, Sadie would have been O.K., too - she was
fine last year.
Oh well, the spectators got a good laugh out of the whole thing, the
photographer (I think) did get a couple of good shots, and - get this - the
local newspaper photographer ALSO took a bunch of pictures of me trying to stop
the dog-and-clown show.
We did take a good picture
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