Lovely Venue for Dog Training

Both myself and my husband train some of our dogs in agility. We train once a week at Woolsingham showground and the venue is lovely when the weather is kind to us. Last Sunday the forecast was not too good, but luckily we only had a couple of light rain showers, so I took the opportunity to take a few photos.

The mums-in-waiting are currently separated from the mums with lambs, much to their disgust.

Saying hello to her friend

Like mother, like daughter/son

Twins at the milk bar

The steam train makes an appearance

My collie girl, Mist, practicing her jumping skills, when the steam train puts in an appearance to make an interesting background

I took this photo earlier in the year, at a rather cold and frosty training session. It shows how picturesque the area is and makes the 80 mile round trip to training so much more worthwhile.

A Rather Wet Walk

As we had a shortbreak from the rain this morning, I enjoyed two walks with my 6 dogs. I took the opportunity to take my camera out on my first walk with Milo and Sweep, as they tend to be a bit neglected in the photo department, so thought I would dedicate some time to capturing the pair of them. We may not have had any rain, but the field was flooded, so ended up with two soggy dogs.

Milo doing his greyhound impression. He is believed to be a staffie x whippet x labrador, but that is just an educated guess as he came to us at around 10 months of age as a stray, so we do not know who his parents were.

Milo racing through the puddles to get to his precious ball.

Milo being a poser

Wink, wink!

Milo and Sweep together

Sweep being rewarded for sitting still for a change

The old man himself. Sweep is the old grump of our group and is affectionately known as Uncle Sweep as he keeps all of the younger dogs in check and stops any rough play.

Merlot and the Two Blondes

We are back to drizzly and wet weather today, so I decided to take my afternoon dog walk to the beach. I usually only have my standard poodle Lottie and her labrador friend Merlot. However, at the moment they are joined by another Lottie, this one a golden retriever. Makes shouting for the dogs easier as I get two for the price of one.

As it was raining, I took my Samsung D860 with me, as I am not too bothered if it gets wet and full of sand. It does not do action shots or zoom very well, but general portrait shots seem to come out OK.

Not the best of shots, but it was the only one I got of all 3 of them together. I like the fact I got their reflections in this one, just would have been better taken with my Nikon D3000.

Golden Retriever Lottie trying to share some sand with me. This girl is always smiling

Lottie poodle and her wet, windswept look

Merlot labrador with a huge smile - not surprised, having two gorgeous blondes to himself

Merlot and his innocent look whilst trying to smuggle half of the beach into my van on his harness

We don't let a little bit of bad weather stop our fun. The dogs were well and truly tired by the end of their walk, ready to be chauffered home in comfort.

A poodle and a puppy

While the weather was good at the start of this week, I took the chance to get some photos of the new pup I am puppy walking. I also took the opportunity to get some updated photos of my standard poodle girl while she was clean and presentable after her recent haircut.

Paigey pup - a 20 week old Blenheim Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. He is the meaning of cuteness and is so intelligent. He is definitely keeping me on my toes.

A rare still moment - he is difficult to photograph as he moves like lightning.

Flying in the wrong direction

His return flight was just as fast

Cute puppy pose

Lottie poodle showing off her rare clean look

Lottie in mid-stride

Happy poodle girl

We are now back to wet and miserable weather, so glad I took the chance to capture these two in the sunshine. 

Golden Retriever and a Different Camera

I love to take my camera out on my walks, but some days, just the thought of lugging around the weight of my camera and lens for an hour is just too much to contemplate. So today, I dug out my old Samsung digital camera and gave it a go. The results weren't fantastic, but good enough to get a few shots of the new dog on my walks. Lottie is a gorgeous, blonde, golden retriever girl that I am walking while her owner recovers from a foot op.

The smiley girl herself.

Stopping for a quick scratch

Admiring the view at the start of our walk. Note the dark sky. It did rain briefly on our walk, much to the disgust of Lottie - for a dog that loves all forms of water, she sure does not like rain!

I was waiting for Lottie to catch up after an intense sniffing session, when a robin landed on a bush just beside me. I dug out my camera, expecting him to fly off, but luckily he sat and posed for a photo.

Overall the camera was not too bad. It is not that great for action shots or zoom photos, but it was fine to get a few shots of this girl when there was a threat of rain and saved me carrying my DSLR around with me. Will have to hope for a day with nice weather over the next couple of weeks to take my DSLR and get some even better photos of this lovely girl.

Spaniels a-plenty

As a dog walker, I get to walk some fantastic dogs. Photographing the dogs I walk myself is always a challenge, as I have to try to get them in action shots, while making sure I am poo-picking and scanning for other dog walkers. They also tend to come back to me when I get down at their eye level to get a decent photo, as they anticipate something fun is about to happen - usually involves my camera lens getting a good licking while they all fight for a cuddle!!!

The gorgeous springer is Livy and this girl never stands still. She is always on the go and her favourite trick is to bring me hedgehogs from the bushes on our walk. Luckily she swaps them for a ball and I can then return them to the bushes, so they are out of the way again.

Getting a good photo of this girl is a challenge. She moves so fast, that panning along with her is rather difficult. I usually end up focused on her middle or bum, rather than her face.

This is a more usual shot of Livy - running through the bushes with the odd glimpse of an ear or the rustle of a bush to tell me she is still close.

This gorgeous cocker girl is Nell. This girl likes to stay still occasionally for a lovely pose, but offers her own challenges in being a black-coloured dog with very dark eyes. Luckily, it was a bright day, so there was plenty of daylight to bring our the gleam in her coat and offer some contrast for her photos.

Nell checking in to make sure I was still with her, before running off again to explore the scented world available to dogs only.

Livy and Nell enjoy a good run, chasing the ball.

This handsome springer is Zak. Getting action shots of Zak can be difficult, as he likes to sit beside me, gazing longingly at my treat bag - and it works every time!

This isn't the best shot of Zak, due to the shadows across his face. However, I love the madness of his ears, as he has the biggest ears ever!

Today was my last walk with this gorgeous trio, for the time being. I should have them again very soon though and will continue in my quest to get a good shot of the 3 of them.