Different Feel

I'm not sure if I like it more, or less, but it definitely gives things a whole different feel...

Playing with Edits

Just for fun...

Straight out of the Camera

Clean, "regular" edit

Vintage edit.

I liked the vintage edit, until I looked back at the "clean" edit and then I decided the vintage one was too weird.  :)

A Little Fun

It was a really weird week... I have 4 coworkers and they all had something really sad or scary or devastating happen this week. Not only am I scared and worried about them, I'm literally down to 1 co-worker so we've had to reduce the hours at the daycare and let all the clients know and figure out how to make things work for the foreseeable future.

I've discovered that when you email 350 people a couple of times in one week, you end up having to respond to a lot of emails!  LOL.  All the clients have been fantastic though - super understanding, and lots of offers to help.

But today I needed a little break.  So I packed up the kids, borrowed Lorelei's lights again and went to the daycare to have some fun.

I find practicing with the lights really hard - I don't know what I'm doing and I can't seem to tell what is working or not working until I get them home and look at them.

I didn't have any tape to hang the backdrops up (I keep forgetting to buy it) so I ended up doing some with just one on the floor and nothing behind them.  In theory, if you have no backdrop, you can set up your camera so that the only things illuminated is the stuff that the light falls on.  It seemed to work pretty well for me!

And I tried some backlit shots which I quite like - although it give such an intense look, it reminds me of pictures of hard core athletes in a gym.

Buddies

Lacey and Vito are great friends but they still have a bit of a weird relationship.

You know those dogs that when they see each other again, they instantly start wrestling and having fun together?  Well that isn't them.

They are thrilled to see each other but then instantly go and do their own thing.  One dog will get the zoomies and the other one will just stand and watch.  Then the other one will be feeling flirty and the other one is too engrossed in a smell to even notice.  This happens over and over again and neither of them seems to feel playful in the same moment.

But when they finally get their act together, watch out, as they have a blast... for about 5 minutes.  And then it is back to their own thing.  :)

Regardless, they make a pretty cute pair.

Vito at the Beach

I needed a little pick me up yesterday so what better way to do that then a trip to the beach with my camera and my favourite dog that isn't mine.  :)

The problem with the beach is that the dogs have so much fun, I take way too many pictures.

I have pictures of Lacey too but thought I had "enough" for a blog post with just Vito.

He actually retrieved the Frisbee a few times but eventually he just did his own thing with it, in true Vito fashion.

I love the beach, but hate all the sand that gets all over them.  All the pictures require giant sand goonies to be edited out but if I tried to get it all, I'd be editing forever.  Besides, it just adds to the charm right?

Lacey was hogging the big stick that we found so I scooped up a different one for Vito.  He was in heaven.

But once that lost it's appeal, I had to break out baby ball to keep the good times rolling.

Once they were nice and tired, I tortured them by getting them to sit on a picnic table.  :)  Vito can sure turn on the charm when he wants to and this one below is one of my favourites of him.

He was ready to go though by the time we got back to the car.  From what I heard, he was a tired boy when he got home.

Thanks for the good times V!

X-rays

The clinic emailed me Coulee's x-rays.  Isn't technology great?!  Here are a few of them...  If I attempt to point out the bad spots, I'll probably fail as I had a hard time following it during the appointment but I'm pretty sure you can see two of the spondylosis spots in the first image (near the centre of the image) and in the second image I seem to remember something about the areas above the disk gaps are supposed to look like a horse's head and so the ones that don't look like that aren't a good sign.

Ironically it was her neck (below) we were the most concerned with, and it was totally fine.

Gathering my Thoughts

We met with the vet today to discuss Coulee's x-rays on her spine and neck.  She has 5 discs in total that look like they are squishing out as well as areas of Spondylosis.

I'm not sure what I feel. Helpless for one.  There doesn't seem to be anything we can do to make it better.  It was a "here are the facts" type visit, not a "here is what we can do to make it better" type of visit.

What I do know (and am writing here so I won't forget):

• After an "episode" (which I think just means when she shows signs of pain) she should be on 8 weeks of reduced activity. The first week she is allowed a daily 5 minute walk, the next week a 10 minute walk, then 15 minutes and so on.  After 8 weeks she can go back to life as normal.
• If we aren't sure if her back is bothering her, we can look for signs of pain by pushing along her spine.
• No more jumping - over things, on things, etc.
• Keep her in good shape but don't be a weekend warrior - i.e. she can swim only if we do it regularly or build up to it.
• The crossing of her back legs when she walks may or may not be related to the back problems - it is usually a sign of weakness, not disk disease, at least not in the areas of her spine that we found the problems in, although there could be more problems lower down in areas that we didn't x-ray.  I've just recently noticed this so I'd be surprised if it isn't related somehow.
• Walking her on a collar or harness is fine - it doesn't matter which we choose
• No more backpacking (mainly because it is a weekend warrior activity - if she carried a pack every day that would be fine)
• Do not play tug
• It will never get better - only stay the same or get worse.

That's it. Nothing has really changed from what we knew yesterday - other than the length of the walks she should be going on - whoops!  The rest I already knew or at least assumed.  

The good news is her teeth look great and she can go back to eating regular food and chewing on toys and bones.  

In the Land of Lights

I'm trying to learn.  Poor Lorelei... she's getting texts from me constantly while I try and figure this stuff out. Without all the handholding it would be a disaster.  Not sure what I'd do without her!

Max helped me practice with antlers on.  :)

And then we did some just plain.  I quite like this one.  Simple and sweet.

The next day Kort helped... I added a sheet on the left to act as a reflector and get some light onto that side.  It worked!

A Visitor

Max is staying with us for a few days.  He belongs to a friend of mine and used to come to daycare so when I found out they were looking for somewhere for him to stay while they were away, I volunteered - provided he got along with our furry crew.

He came over the week before for a trial and much to my surprise Lacey LOVED him.  He was pretty aloof, but I knew it would be an easy to manage situation.  He wasn't great with Lu but he called off really easily and I decided that it was a problem that was worth managing in order to broaden Lacey's horizons a little more.  She really has been much, much better with greeting dogs lately!  I'm very happy about that.

Max has some social issues of his own and doesn't really like dogs he doesn't know and in particular, he doesn't enjoy big dogs.  The nice thing about Coulee and Lacey is that they generally want to avoid other dogs too, so no one is pestering him to play or being too pushy.  All the inept social dogs tend to work well at our house as everyone just gives everyone else some space.  :)

They've all be co-existing quite well from the get go.  I keep hoping Max and Lacey will play, but it hasn't happened.  On walks though they amble along together and check out all the same smelly spots.

I've been walking Coulee separately to try and avoid her running. It is working much, much better than the fiasco earlier this week.  :)  Although going on two dog walks is rather time consuming.

It's been nice though having a new photography subject with "my main girl" down for the count for a while.  Max has been nicely keeping me preoccupied.

It's been fun having him around.  He's my little shadow and is never far from me.  Last night he was all snuggled up in bed with me and Marlin was trying to convince him to go out for a bathroom break.  He called and cajoled and called some more.  I finally woke up and told him to go and he went.  When Marlin let him back into the bedroom he launched across the room and back into bed with me before anyone else could steal his spot.  :)

He'll be with us for the rest of the weekend and goes home Monday.  I should have a few more photos to share by then.  :)

Yesterday's Walk

Our walk yesterday was so bad and involved so much yelling, I don't even want to think about it. Some of it was Coulee's fault (she will NOT listen when she knows a toy is not to be had) and some of it was just me trying to get her to not run and play (and by play I mean beat the crap out of her sister because she doesn't have a toy in her mouth).  Instead, I'll just leave you with some pictures of the good moments.

This was not a good moment.  After yelling Come and No about 5 times I gave up and snapped a picture instead.  She stunk so much Lacey actually tried to roll on her later in the walk.