But, on Sunday I joined the other spectators and took along my camera. Sunday consisted of a Double Lift Final and there were many wonderful runs, the first one was spectacular and ended up being the winner!  I was very excited to have captured much of it.  I talk a lot about herding on this blog and I am sure that many of you sort of get it, but don’t truly understand what it is about.  I am finding herding to be one of the most challenging endeavors I have ever taken on. It is all about the communication and respect between the handler and the dog and then you throw the factor of the livestock, in this case, sheep, into the equation and life gets interesting very quickly!  As a handler, you have to be able to read the sheep and dog and then be able to communicate to the dog where you want him to take the sheep.  It is not an easy task…….!  The man in these images is Alasdair MacRae and Nap, who incidentally is a Border Collie.

This story begins with a man and his dog!

They enter the field.  They have been given a course, which consists of a series of tasks that they have to complete in a specific order and within a certain time!  There are two separate sets of sheep in the very far distance, which they must group together and begin the course. This is referred to as the Double Lift Outwork.  During this time, the handler has to remain at a post, send the dog to the sheep  and do all  communication  with his dog through whistles or voice commands.

As you can see, they were quite a distance from the post.  The 2nd group is way off to the right.

At this point, the dog has gathered all of the sheep into a group and is moving them towards his handler.

Once the sheep are too the handler, the dog drives them around the post and starts moving them through a series of panels.

The judge is watching for how calmly and consistently and accurately  the sheep are moving throughout the course!

At this point, you are probably wondering why some of the sheep are so fashionably dressed in red bows!!!

Next comes a part of the run known as an International Shed.  If you notice, there is a track in the grass in the picture above which creates a circle. The dog , Nap, with instructions from the handler is moving the sheep into the circle.  At this point, the handler leaves the post and comes into the circle.  Their task is to shed/move the sheep without the bows to the outside of the circle.  If a red bow gets out, they have to bring them all back in and start over.  This particular shed was pure magic IMHO!

Mission Accomplished!!!

…..and with that they are off to the pen, which is the final obstacle!

Bravo Alasdair and Nap!!

I absolutely love the challenge of herding with my Australian Shepherd, Spyder.  I keep telling everyone that it is much more fun than doing crosswords and certainly strains my brains every bit as much!  We are definitely at the beginning of this journey and will start trialing soon, but it is wonderful to have such a vision of  possibility for the future!

On a side note:  For those of you who know a lot more about this than I do…….I apologize if I have been inaccurate about anything.  This was all from a fairly new to the scene enthusiast!

Of course we all wanted to see what happened when ducks were introduced………!  No doubt that those natural instincts are there!

You have to love the curiosity of puppies!

You can always count on the “cuteness” factor when photographing puppies!

……and one black and white photograph, just for  something different!

CLICK IMAGE

When you are done with the video, you might want to check out the rest of the images that I took at camp!

Events at Dancing Dog Photography

Such a setting provides many opportunities for photography, although my main ‘focus’ was on herding. Here are a few images to help tell the story of a wonderful week!

We had the opportunity to herd ducks.  For those who don’t know, there is a course of obstacles that you ultimately want to quietly move the ducks through! It can be quite a challenge at times, but is great fun!

We did spend most of our time working with sheep.  A young dog is often started in a small pen.

There is much to learn about the communication with your dog.  Special terms are used to tell the dog what you want it to do, along with the use of body language and for more advanced teams, whistles. It can be very confusing for all involved, but when it finally works, it is such a wondrous feeling!

…..and getting a really great pen is always time for Celebration!

We had many opportunities to spend very special time with our wonder K-9 partners.

We all made new friends!

….and this is why we do what we do…….!!!!!

This last image totally portrays the serenity and peacefulness of a handler and her dog in total communication, moving a group of sheep in a relaxed walk-about…..job well done Pat and Woody!

Oh, and just to prove that I really was at camp, here is one last photo that another camper, Mary Peaslee took of moi and Spyder!

You may view two photo galleries of images from Camp at:

Dancing Dog Event Photography

Click on Dog Event Galleries at the top on the menu bar. There are two different galleries from camp. Please use the contact link if you have any problems.

For those of you who want to see even more………tomorrow I am going to put up a video that I made from several of the photos that I took at camp.

I love this photograph that I captured of Vicki and Kodiak!

Sunday, May 23, 2010 found all sorts of Pugs and other dogs spending the afternoon at  The Taproom | MacTarnahan’s Brewing Company in Portland, Oregon.  Weather wise, we had a little bit of rain, but what is Oregon without Rain?  Many of the Pug’s and their People were dressed in costumes and participated in a parade.  Several other dog breeds came along to share in the festivities.  The people enjoyed beer out of wonderful glasses commemorating the occasion!  The entire event was a fund raiser for the Oregon Humane Society .  The event was sponsored by Pugslife.

So, in the great Oregon tradition, what is a parade without a  Rose Queen?

She was cheered on and supported by a few local representative Oregon Duck fans!

What about a Cowboy?

This pug is dressed more in a Native costume!

…..and another Beauty Queen!

Who would not want a Pug Sunflower?????

The Pug Crawl was a Pet Photographer’s dream come true!  For several hours there were wonderful photographs to be taken at every turn of the camera lens.  The owners loved to have their special pets photographed as well.  Go to Portland Pug Crawl 2010 Dog Photographs to see more images!  You can also click on the  Dog Event Gallery button at the top of this page. Images can be purchased at that site as well.

10% of all proceeds will be donated to the Oregon Humane Society

You might also want to check out this short movie that I created from the images!!

One of these two little cuties was not sure that it wanted to be photographed and kept hiding behind the other one.  We placed them in a basket, hoping to create a little more security for them.

This Boston Terrier was quite happy to participate in our shoot, especially when his mom let us bribe him with his favorite treats!  He even performed several tricks, but unfortunately in his excitement, he had moved out of the light!  Don’t you just love his big eyes?

I loved processing this image in black and white.  It seemed to fit this dog so well and he looks great on the zebra print chair!

We then moved on to Studio Photography using natural, available light.  There were some awesome windows in the front of the studio and with the use of a reflector to bounce the light as well, we were able to get some really beautifully lit images IMHO!!!

A group of about 20 photographers from all over the US and Canada spent two and a half days learning as much as we could absorb about all aspects of dog photography from shooting to the business end!  It was a fabulous experience and I came home energized and ready to grow my business.  This group of photographers has also provided a wonderful network of information and discussion, as many of us have remained in contact.

The actual photography part of the workshop was broken into two sections.  For the ‘on location’ section,   Bev took half the class to a nearby greenbelt to practice shooting three dogs. One of the techniques that she taught is referred to as shooting from the hip.  The plan is hold your camera at low levels and shoot up at the subject.  With a dog, this is definitely below the hip level.  You shoot with a fairly wide angle and count on your auto focus and just shoot.  Once you get the hang of that, you start moving with the dog.  It definitely creates some fun and unique images!

We then moved on to using natural light and discussed the use of different backgrounds.  We remained in one small area, but were able to achieve several completely different looks!

For this image, we moved Zoe next to this beautiful brick wall.

At this point, we started losing our light, so it was time to practice with lighting.  In this shot, we used one off camera flash in a softbox to get this beautiful soft light!

Our three awesome models were provided by Robin Ashman-Terrell of Good Dog Fetch

In my next post, I will share the ‘In Studio Session’!

Speaking of photography, because that is the other important element of this blog….not just dogs!……this type of photography is often quite a challenge.  Pretty much everything about it is unpredictable.  You need to be ready to track the dogs in any direction, and sometimes, like this young  Aussie, they move in all directions…at very high speeds.  In many of my photos, he is pretty much a blur! If I had not been following him with my lens and firing off shots at a very fast speed, I never could have captured this photo.  It probably happened so quickly that even the human eye did not register the moment.  That is what I love about photography…capturing those moment and it is such a great feeling when you get it right!

Many people say that photography is all about light….how the photographer handles the light on his subject and adjusts the camera accordingly.  When shooting dogs herding any livestock, the lighting situation is constantly changing, as the dogs run from full sun to intense shade…..all I can say is thank goodness for Light Room and Photo Shop, which are the products that I use to correct and enhance images!  Full sun is not always your friend, as it allows some parts of an image to become blown out and you loose detail, so I am always looking for ways to adjust for that.  Unlike in portrait photography, you can not really choose your background…which creates interesting dilemmas at times!  It certainly helps to have a camera and lens that really focus and adjust quickly. I was so reminded of this when one of the handlers asked me to grab some photos of her session with her little point and shoot.  I have not seen them yet, but am guessing that they were not very good…..I felt like I could count to ten from the time I pressed the button until I heard the camera take the picture…..!  That was painful….LOL!

In case you are wondering, I am a Nikon girl all the way.  My camera of choice is  the   Nikon d700 and my favorite lens for this type of shooting is this one  AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II from Nikon .  I would love to get more reach with a lens, but this combination already weighs several pounds I can not hand hold any more.  A tripod or monopod would be way too problematic for this type of photography.

By the end of the day, there was great improvement in all of the dogs and I was able to capture many of their moments of brilliance with my camera!  For those who know very little or nothing about herding, one of the many tasks that the dog needs to accomplish when herding is to keep an eye on the outside eye of the lead duck.  By doing that he can better judge where they are going next and the duck understands who is in charge!  If you look at the following images, you can definitely see that being demonstrated by all of the dogs.

How about a little Shadowing?

One of the participating dogs was not quite sure of the ducks. Trudy decided to try to interest him by bringing in her dog Tick, who is a very talented and seasoned herding dog and let him shadow her for awhile. He was very intent on following Tick around as she showed him how its done…….

Tick was all fine with this as long as he kept his distance,, but boys will be boys…..we all started laughing when we saw her giving him

“THE LOOK“!

…….and she does it so well!……..”just back off buster, and I mean NOW!”

It was an awesome clinic and a beautiful day……Thank you Trudy for such a great workshop and thanks to Brigand’s for sponsoring it!

For anyone interested more images can be viewed and or purchased here: (click on Events Galleries and choose the Duck Clinic)

Dancing Dog Photography/Debbie Z Dunne/Pet & People Photography/Portland,Oregon

Trudy is going to be giving a  Duck Herding Workshop at Brigand’s HideOut in Washington on Saturday, May  8.  It will be my first time taking a Duck Clinic and I look forward to the learning experience.  I find it such great fun to take the opportunity to participate in a variety of activities with my dogs. They always make me smile and I love watching their enthusiasm to try new things. Dogs are great problem solvers and quite often their main purpose is to make you happy. There are always those challenging times as well, but for the most part, these wonderful partners that we call pets, make the experiences so worth while!  I challenge you to try a new activity with your dog!  There are many possibilities.  I promise that it will put a smile on your face like nothing else can!!!

Oh, and as a disclaimer……detail oriented observers might wonder why some images have five ducks and some four…….?  One of the ducks decided to become a renegade and ‘flew the coop’ so to speak!  Cricket never touched a duck  and was very careful throughout her entire lesson. ……and for artistic purposes, I did not put the images in the sequence as they happened!  So now you have the whole story!