Most often, when I’m out and about taking photos and being inspired for posts to this blog, my faithful companion is by my side. His picture is above. This seventeen pound cocker-poo is a good dog. And, as I don’t particularly care for dogs, that’s saying a lot.

I was hounded into dog ownership by my children, who, nine years ago, cajoled my husband into switching his vote to their side. Now, as the children are away at school, dog care is pretty much in my job arena.

In the past, I’d hook him to his leash a couple of times a day and off we’d go to annoy each other on our walk. He’d want to stop and sniff, I’d like to pause and take photographs – but, we never seemed to want to halt at the same time. We tugged and pulled our way along the walk around the pond. But, over time, we’ve worked into a groove of patience with each other. And, on most walks we maintain it. I allow him his sniffing time and he stands at attention (as shown above) on my ‘stay’ command while I focus and shoot. He is so used to this routine that as soon as the shutter clicks he relaxes into his ‘at ease’ posture and looks to me to determine if the one shot satisfied me.

Most pictures on this site have been taken with me muttering ‘…stay…stay…good boy’.

Many pictures have been take with him trying to stretch the non-stretchable leash as I shoot a wing and a prayer action shot that has not allowed us the time to take our positions.

When I was young, there was a joke in our house. One of my siblings would ask, “What’s this?” and then he would tap the air in front of him with his index finger, at about standard dog height. The answer was, me – petting a dog. It was known that between fear and the cootie factor, that was about the best attention I could muster for man’s best friend. Now, with our family pet, I’ve come a long way. And, if history is any indicator, I’ll be the only one crying at his funeral – as has been the case for all our family pets who have gone to pet heaven.

Stay. Good boy.