Monday, May 10, 2020
Your dog knows when you’re trying to take its picture.
Nope! Nope! They seem to say: you can’t have that head shot you want. Here’s my butt instead.
Try to take a picture of something else that involves kneeling down, suddenly the dog is intensely curious about what you’re looking at, and is thinking perhaps you are digging up a biscuit or other treat, just for them. So when you want to kneel down low and shoot a bunch of close-ups of some moss, your canine companion helps you out by digging it all up for you.
We’ve now gotten to the point on hikes where if I spot something on the side of the trail, I wait until Birdie has loped up the path a bit before I kneel down to capture a fiddlehead fern just about to unfurl to meet the new season, or a nice little grouping of wild violets. If I linger too long, she comes rushing back to trample on my object of interest, helpfully composting it into the forest floor.
They know what you’re up to. One of my friends had a dog who would leave the room if you pulled out a recognizable camera to take its picture. I managed to capture a picture of him by pulling out my phone, pretending to scroll through it and then snapped a couple of pictures of him when he was wasn’t looking By the second shot, he caught me.
Meanwhile, I have always suspected that I’m constantly being played by Birdie. I don’t have many good shots of her head, and the only one where I got a reasonable expression was last winter on a local hike, I bribed her with a treat to look up at me.
It was a good treat too — chewy and delicious. Rest of the time, can’t keep her attention while also trying to hold the phone and click the shutter button. By the time I get everything lined up, she’s bored with staying put and has wandered off to find something more interesting. Like in this nice portrait of her next to a melting stream.
Can’t complain too much as she isn’t always interested in my pictures. I do manage to get a few nice un-trampled flower shots from time to time.
Stay safe my friends.