Every week, Hair of the Dog Blog (a blog for pet photographers) posts a new weekly facebook photo competition. I have been following along for a while, never submitting an image yet - until last week when the theme was "black and white".
You're allowed to post two images and in my mind, I had narrowed down the two shots I wanted to submit pretty quickly.
The first image here is the one that made the Top Ten, and I am totally thrilled!
I like this image personally for a lot of reasons - but maybe mostly because it speaks so strongly to everything I really believe in and work for. The process of training, the by-product of training, the effort and time spent connecting and creating a bond with your dog, Investing into Becoming Their Best Friend, and then having some of those little moments captured as permanent images to treasure.
That connection and Friendship is a Gift. Never something to be taken for granted, but a true gift when it is present.
There is no prize money or fancy ribbons or awards, but what a great way to spread awareness and get to showcase your work beyond your own readership.
I'm very Grateful for this opportunity to have an image published on a well-read blog; what a great feeling to start off the week with!
"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."
- Unknown
It's a beautiful quote, the one above. It came to me as I was deciding to post these images and looking for words to go along with them. What do you say beside images that already tell such a story of connection?
I adore seeing connection between people and their dogs. It's a a true gift - that goes both ways.
And isn't that ultimately what dog training is all about? Developing and strengthening the relationship, finding ways to connect, deepening the bond, making ourselves "worthy" of our dogs and multiplying the reasons to connect and Be Together. That's always been the idea behind the training we do at Wags.
It doesn't have to be elaborate or complex - sometimes the reasons for training and developing skills can be pretty simple and every-day. At the end of the day - It's the Journey that matters - perhaps not so much the destination... It's a good thing to ponder and be thinking about: "What's in Your Journey?"
This past week I have spent completely immersed in the world of things visual. First off, of course I have been trying to stay afloat with keeping my eye on (pardon the pun) regular class work, registrations and reading and responding to the many emails that land in my inbox every day.
But beyond that, I've been hard at work editing all the fun images we shot of Elroy the week before.
AND; here's the really visual: I took part in a training course - all about Photoshop. My brain is actually about to burst - information overload is a huge understatement...I've been staring at images and learning and absorbing all week long - and there's no denying it: I am super excited about new ideas, new knowledge and tools discovered! (It's been a long time since I formally updated my knowledge about this tool).
What really struck me, though is just HOW closely related the two loves of my life are (well, there's Hubby too - so that would make it three loves, but you get the idea!?) Dogs and Photography - and to make it clear: the Man, of course (maybe not in that order?)
One of the instructors in the Photoshop course was explaining to the group about the importance of REALLY SEEING - not just looking, but actually trying to see and understand. The specific discussion was regarding composites and how to combine images, layers and effect so it looks natural and the instructor was giving tips for how to achieve good end results - urging the students to Really LOOK. If you can't identify it - you can't reproduce it. In order to know how to make something - you have to understand what it needs to look like in the end to get to the end result.
Wow! It's exactly the same as in dog training! Isn't it? If you can't paint a visual picture of where you want to go - how can you describe steps to get there? or identify gaps when you get stuck?
When wanting to achieve something specific with your dog - whether teaching a performance behaviour or working on fixing a problem - I think this is so valuable (maybe so obvious but easily forgotten!) -- what we can all benefit from is to slow down for a moment and think in reverse and describe, in great detail, what you see (where do you want to go?) and what that particular behavior looks like - and then start adding the layers - just like in Photoshop!
There's a fantastic great quote that I absolutely love (and I am very sorry I don;t remember who said this?) but it rings so very true and I will leave you with this thought to ponder:
"If you don't know where you're going ~ Any road will take you there"
