Smile and say "CHEEEESE"

My great friend who writes the blog A Day in the Life of a New Rattitude Foster Dog has this wonderful photo of her dogs and fosters as the banner for her blog. She takes these occasionally in the same location  in their house but with a variety of foster dogs and it's fun to see the newest attempts to get everyone sitting still and looking at the camera.

Well, while I was outside in the backyard playing with 4 of the 5 dogs currently living here, I had the bright idea to take a similar photo on our deck. I knew my personal dogs Frodo and Tilly would sit-stay but Salinas and Chima were another thing.

Here's why this was a stupid idea. Of the four dogs I've got one dog who doesn't want to be more than 2" away from me, and another isn't real hot on the idea of being close to me. Then you've got Frodo who isn't fond of being near the other dogs but will suffer through if treats are involved. Finally you have 8#, 11 yr old Tilly who does not know she is tiny and is not above opening a can of whoop-ass on the other dogs, no matter what their size, if she thinks they've transgressed against her in some manner.

The following 8 photos are presented in the order taken. I really should have stopped after the first one because it just went downhill from there.

Frodo finds if he looks away from the camera he can pretend this isn't happening.  He wants so badly to leave but he'll be damned if he's going to miss a treat. I assume if I just keep snapping photos, he'll eventually look at me, right?

And  in this one Salinas is off the deck, plastered to my leg.

In this one Tilly isn't sure it's worth the effort anymore and everyone else gets distracted by some birds.

Here is where I lowered my expectations - since Frodo wouldn't look at the camera, maybe just a shot of the girls? But Salinas had an itch...

Back to all four. This would have been a good one if Frodo would just look at me.

And, we've lost Salinas again.  What you aren't seeing are the other 10 photos that looked just like this one - 3 dogs and 1 dog butt.

Here you see Chima and Frodo, the stereotype of long suffering dogs, putting up with some confusing human craziness all in the name of a treat.  At this point I actually uttered Frodo's nickname which is "God damn dog". Of course that is said in the gentlest, most loving of voices.

OMG! He looked! He looked at the camera!
And the moral of this story is NOT that you should swear at your dogs. 

No one was harmed in the taking of these photos and even little old Tilly didn't feel the need to put anyone in their place, in spite of Salinas bouncing all over the place and nearly on top of Tilly a couple times.  I pay in really good kibble so they totally thought it was worth the hassle. I on the other hand don't think I'll be trying this again any time soon.