Yet Another Attempt at Yankee Doodle Doodles

Heehee.

I fear that I might not be able to recreate Newton Golden's super cute puppy with flag photo (go on, you can look at it again - it's still painfully cute!), but we are moving closer to having Yankee Doodle Doodles.  When I was at Petco to get Fi's soft cone and collar for her upcoming surgery, Jessi (the turkey hotdog lady and enabler of crazy dog photos) helpfully pointed out that they had these nifty red and blue with white stars tennis balls.  It was a no-brainer.

And so here is the first attempt with the flag in a patriotic tennis ball.  (Because I am nothing if not tenacious! And the girls are tolerant - especially when bits of cheese are involved.)

And if I still can't get the tennis balls to totally work, we have patriotic leis.  We're totally ready for the 4th of July (and the 24th of July - which is Pioneer Day in Utah, and lets us conveniently recycle our 4th of July accessories!)

Seriously, the Dairy Farmers of America should hire me to bring back the "Ahh - The Power of Cheese" marketing campaign!

 Day 181/365.

Doggie Park!

I decided to stop by our local park on the way out to run my usual Sunday errands.  But because it was Sunday at 10am, our local park was dead.  Except for some kids on the swings, and taking pictures of strange kids just seems all sorts of creepy to me.  So, I decided to head to Willow Creek Park - which has a vastly improved dog park this year (we have taken Fi and Abby there in years past and will definitely be taking them back this summer).  There were a few dogs out, enjoying the pond and the zoomie area, giving me plenty of opportunities to photograph strange dogs.

Loch Ness Doodle Monster!

Clearly something Very Interesting was going on here!

This doggie kept coming over to say hi!

Flying!

While no one asked me for a business card, no one freaked out that I was photographing their dogs.  I had a grand time, and I'll definitely be going back.

Day 180/365.

You Take 'Em When You Can Get 'Em

I had great plans to go to the dog park today, or at least go to the park at the bottom of the neighborhood today, but after a good, but tiring bike ride, and a relentless sinus headache, it didn't happen.  (However, I'm going to take the camera with me tomorrow when I go to run errands - I'll be more likely to stop at the park if I'm already out.)

But, Abby was very helpful today and found the sunspot in the house today, making my "one" photo for the day very easy!

Doodle at Rest. 

Of course, the girls also assisted me in my photo taking by agreeing to some tennis ball action.  Yes, they are such good girls that way.  I mean, I totally had to twist their tails to get them to play tennis ball, but they cooperated... Or possibly it was the longing looks Fi was giving me - looking at the tennis balls on the table and then looking at the back door and then looking back at me.  She made her point - and who am I to deny the girls some tennis ball time?

Tennis ball can be a contact sport at our house.  However, a foul was called and this earned Abby a yellow card!

Day 179/365.

Portraits

It's been a while since I took some 'basic' off-camera flash photos, and today seemed like a good day for it - and a nice change from tennis ball photos.  Not to worry; the girls still got plenty of tennis ball time, I just wasn't snapping photos.

I got some indoor portraits first.

Goofy puppy!

Happy girl!

Group photo fail!

Poor, neglected puppy... Just ask her - she'll tell you how she's neglected.  *grin*

Happy, happy girl!

Then we went outside for a few shots.

Patriotic Doodle.

Fluffy puppy on porch.

Fi the Pensive

I love Abby's eye in this photo!

Pretty girl!

I really like using the flash outdoor - it creates 'better-than-natural' lighting.

Better group photo!

Day 178/365.

Action!

Fi and I had to meet our dog trainer this afternoon to check out soft cones and collars (no photos of that - Fi wasn't too thrilled about the choices), in preparation for next week's surgery, but the girls and I were able to get some tennis ball action in first.  All the photos were shot in full manual; as the sky darkened (we currently have a good thunderstorm going on) I played around with the shutter speed and the aperture.  I thought about changing the ISO, too, but I figured two 'moving parts' were all I could handle today - and it seemed to work out just fine.  And I got some fun shots, too.

Abby is either rehearsing for Doodle Lake, or she's working on her triple toe loop!

"Mine!"  "Yours!"  "That's what I said; mine!"

Sproing!

Day 177/365.

Oh Yeah!

Near the end of today's tennis ball session, I decided to lie down on the grass to get some action shots at a slightly different angle.  When I started looking at the photos I had pulled off the camera, I quickly came upon one that convinced me that I didn't have to look at any of the rest of the photos, because it was perfect.

Exactly what I was looking for.

Yep.  That's pretty cool.

But, of course, since I had taken 100+ photos, I had to look at the rest of them, even though I was certain nothing could compare with that.

Yes, I got some grass stains on my cycling jersey (not to worry, they came out), but I loved the results, with the sky and the trees and everything.

But I wasn't done with nifty shots (it's really funny how some days things just click - pardon the pun - and other days not so much).

Holy Jaws of Doom, Batman!  (Or to paraphrase the guy in 'Jaws', "I'm gonna need a bigger boat!")

But wait, there's more!  The girls have clearly been watching the World Cup soccer matches while I'm at work...

And then there were some other fun action shots...

And Abby decided to evolve into a two-legger (I say evolve, Abby probably says 'devolve', other than this gives her better access to the kitchen counters).

With legs like that, she's ready to be a super model!

And finally I got one of those soft light photos that you see on sentimental greeting cards.

Yep, it was a great day!

176/365.