My Chocolate Lab Photo Subject

These photos are of my sweet four-year-old chocolate Lab, Lady Dave. She is sweet, loyal, docile, and loving. I love her so much, and she loves me so much. She has dark fur that is perfect for twilight glow photos, because the tangerine-colored sunset glows off the fur of her ruff. I was surprised that her fur would photograph so easily. If you are a pet or animal photographer, you will know how hard it is to take photos of dark-colored dogs. They fade into the background, but Lady Dave surprisingly does not. She is very photogenic and she will look at you while you snap photos for an extended period if you offer her some tasty treatos. She loves them! The photo of her with the orange light coming in from behind was taken by me holding a treat in one hand, and my camera in the other, trying to catch the moment. It is hard to get the perfect golden hour time when there is that glowing coppery light that almost gives a look like your subject is in a twilight picture frame. I managed to catch that particular photo at this perfect time. Lady Dave is a wonderful photography subject for me, and she is part of the reason that I now love photography. Thank you, Lady Dave!

A Photo Field Trip to Wolf Park

My mom and I had spent the night in Indianapolis a few days ago, but it was a surprise that we were not going home when we checked out of the hotel. In fact, we were going to Wolf Park to take photos! Wolf Park is a sanctuary in Indiana, and they have bison, foxes, and of course, as the name implies, wolves! Wolves being my favorite animal, I was so excited! When we got there, we took our seats for our guided tour. The tour guide gave us lots of information on wolves and the sanctuary itself, which is actually 50 years old this year. Over the years, some of the Wolf Park staff have even had ties with the wolf rehabilitation in Yellowstone. After that, we began walking, talking about the empty exhibits and the wolves that lived in them. Then, we came upon two pens with real wolves in them! In one pen, there were two wolves. One of them was smaller, a little younger, and was light gray. Her name was Sparrow and she looked a lot like my husky Blizzy! The other one was named Nico, and he was HUGE! He was about 150 pounds, and was black with a gray muzzle. He had beautiful amber eyes. In the other pen was Timber, who was much lighter and more nervous, but she was so sweet. Our kind tour guide let us stop for a bit while he told us a little more about these particular wolves and their history at Wolf Park. We walked ahead and saw the bison and moved out on a bridge that overlooked the biggest wolf enclosure.. and we heard howling! The nice tour guide told everyone to give their best howls, so we did. And the wolves howled back! We could not see them, but we could hear them howling. Amazing! I have always wanted to howl with wolves. This was an incredible part of the day, and it wasn't even over! After the amazing howl-a-thon, we went to see their adorable little red fox, Scarlette. She was so cute and adorable, I just wanted to pick her up and snuggle her! At the very end, with the tour finished, we heard more howling, but it was louder. We went back to the big pen, just to check. And there, less than ten feet in front of us, was a wolf. A beautiful gray wolf that was throwing its head back and howling-just for us! We said goodbye to the wolf, Khewa, who gave a yip in farewell. Then we went to do gift shop damage! All in all, it was a really special trip and I thank you, Wolf Park, for doing all that you can to save wolves. But if you're reading this, we can save wolves. Wolves are beautiful, misunderstood creatures. We humans hunt them because all many of us know about wolves are werewolves and the Big Bad Wolf. But wolves are certainly not that. I want to thank Ms. Rosanne Parry, who wrote A Wolf Called Wander, which is the book that taught me all about wolves. A Wolf Called Wander is the book that made wolves my favorite animal. So if you are reading this, Ms. Parry, know that your book is what showed me that we can save wolves if we work together. Let's save wolves!

Happy Birthday, Keightley!

A few weeks ago, my dog, Keightley, celebrated his fourteenth birthday! Keightley is our sweet old man, a yellow Lab / lemon beagle mix. Keightley has Cushings disease and arthritis, so we weren't sure if he'd make it to 14. But here he is! He loves us and can be very protective. He loves to quietly chew his stuffy toys, hence his nickname of Nibbles. Keightley is very sweet, although he can be very grumpy sometimes! He and the husky do not get along! But overall, Keightley is a sweet little boy, and pretty well behaved. Well, most of the time. We got Keightley a top hat and tuxedo collar. He wore them, but only to an extent. I did manage to get these photos of Keightley with his bow tie and fancy top hat. We gave everyone handmade puppy cake - all the dogs had puppy cake, the humans had cookies. And then it was time for presents! We gave Keightley a little green dog-shaped stuffed toy and a money-shaped stuffed toy. He appeared to love them, even trying to pounce on them. It was so sweet! Our little old man is fourteen and we are already hoping for fifteen. But no matter what, we are so grateful for the fourteen years that we have been lucky to call Keightley our own. Happy birthday, Keightley!