… and … local or not, please go vote for my pet photography business, Sit.Stay.Snap. Pet Photography, to win the WFAA-list’s Best Pet Photography category … I’m competing against several other DFW area pet photographers and would love to win!

PS… you’ll need to confirm your email address (look for the email w/ the subject line: Welcome to the WFAA-list), its the first of the two links in that email!

Thanks in advance!

Studio 6.23 — love this session, so well coordinated (clothing wise), they do such a great job at rocking family sessions as well as they do engagement sessions!

Jamie Delaine — another session I love … the setting + the nautical striped dress the mom’s wearing *sigh*

Karen Wise — Manhattan + beautiful couple + gorgeous light … would love to shoot a session like this one in the Big Apple!

Janine Walker — beautiful lighting + beautiful couple (and across the pond to boot!)

Cowbelly — love these silhouette shots of Fergie (Jamie’s dog/biz mascot)!

Scruffy Dog — especially love the wheat field shots!

Those that know me know I typically spend springtime out photographing the glorious blooms around East Texas, whether in my own yard, along roadsides, or wherever I may happen across them. Beyond a quick getaway to Ellis County recently, I haven’t done so. Shame on me. So, last night (Thursday) I took a 15 minute break before the sun completely set and wandered around my yard to capture the early blooms of the season … this would be my favorite shot:

If you’ve had a portrait session with me, you know I have a tendency to contort myself or lay down on the ground to get the shot I have envisioned. Same thing with my ‘fun’ or artsy photography. One of my favorite shots I captured a couple springs ago resulted in me laying on the sidewalk in the middle of the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens while the other passers-by thought I was nuts. This time, however, I was hunched down as low as I could literally curl up into without sitting or laying down (Hannah, I’m certain, knows what I mean!).

I also captured a few ‘outtakes’ of the most loyal male in my life — my Rascal. He suffers from PDS aka Photographer’s Dog Syndrome. He doesn’t like me so much when that big black thing covers my face — nor does he really like my P&S either anymore. So I rarely capture a great portrait of him anymore Shame, he’s such a hansome fellow. I realize this isn’t as spectacular of an image of him as it could be, but I was shooting through a gate from 15 feet away at 75 mm.

Lastly, this lil guy joined me for the last five or so minutes, constantly winding his way through my legs to show me how much he loves me. He’s a part time resident of mi casa — apparantly someone dumped him out and he adopted us. Lately he’s also gotten into some battles with some foxes roaming nearby and I have to guess they roughhoused him a little too much based on the wound on the back of his head. That’s what I assume he was telling me all about while he kept me company as he didn’t stop meowing for a few minutes! Anyway, I finally asked him to hold still so I could get a portrait of his handsome self — and he did! This image is actually rotated 180 degrees — that’s my foot along the right edge. So … meet Yea Yea (dubbed such since his meow sounds like he is saying “Yeah, Yeah” …

It did.

They attacked another neighbor’s baby goats (which weren’t much bigger than Sweets) — and killed five of them last night. Only this time, when the goats’ owner heard the ruckus during the middle of the night, he came out armed.

Sheriff department’s response when he notified them in the event the hoodlums’ owners called complaining: “Good job. We’d have done the same if it had been us.”

Now Pokie can resume her nighttime ‘guard duty’ of the outdoors — ever had to put a cat in a barn at night when its not freezing cold? Not. fun. And now we can breathe a little easier knowing those two aren’t going to be terrorizing the neighborhood ever again.

Bash — my six year old half blue heeler/half catahoula hyper dog — needs a huge amount of prayers right now. Up until Wednesday, he has been his normal hyper dog trying so hard to be good self. Wednesday night when I fed him, he looked up at me like, “this is it?” … I just thought it was because he was tired of dog food since I had no leftovers of late to feed him. Thursday, he ate nothing I gave him — we scoured to find human food for him. And he wouldn’t even sniff it. Friday, called the vet — got an appointment for yesterday morning. That night I got him to eat a little moist dog food we bought for him — then when he went to mark his territory, I saw blood in his urine. Because of my class reunion, my parents had heck getting him out there — dad even had a seditive from the vet — and they did the sonogram. They called me while I was at the reunion picnic and just told me they were going to have to keep him over the weekend to run tests. In the past hour I just found out when they finally elaborated that the vet tested the urine and said there’s abnormal cells in it — and the sonogram showed a mass on his kidney. They’re supposed to do something else and let us know Monday, but the vet told dad we needed to decide what to do. They could do surgery, treat it, or … the one thing I couldn’t do to a pet or a human, put him to sleep because apparently my hyper trying so hard to be a good dog was also pretty tough — and until this week wasn’t going to show weakness — has suffered for awhile. I’ve looked online, and the options at point aren’t much. There’s no guarantee it would work if we did surgery or treatment — so I would appreciate it if you’d all send a lot of prayers his way for miracle or at least that he doesn’t have to suffer long. I would rather bring him home and keep him sedated, but if that’s not possible, I will have to let someone else make the call because I can’t.

Thanks …

2003 — this is the look he gave me Thursday and Friday :*(

2008

Six years ago in June, I lost my beloved Wilbur…

While it hurt deeply to lose my canine companion of twelve years, my brother’s ‘twin’ because they were the exact same age, I could accept his death as a part of growing old, body failing the mind and spirit that were still young at heart. It didn’t make the pain any less, but I could accept losing my best friend and the one male I knew would always be loyal to me, even though he was adopted for my little brother. He was a wonderful judge of character, knew what guys I didn’t dare need to leave home with, and was there to lick the tears off my face and lean against me when I needed it.

This weekend, his feline best friend and porch buddy on rainy days, Sweet Pea, aka Sweets, the Sweetness, my lil Rockstar, Sweet Treats, the Dutchess, was attacked by two neighborhood dog hoodlums out looking for trouble on Saturday night. Despite my two dogs trying their best to break out of their pens to save her and my father rescuing her, driving me and her to the vet, and my mother staying with her all day today, even performing CPR on her twice so I could make it home after work to tell her goodbye, she joined him late this evening during the hurdle semis (I only note this because I was telling her about the Swedish runner taking a tumble when she took her last breaths). And, like the last time when I discovered my beloved Wilbur gone, when I walked out to take her to where my dad was digging her burial place by her best canine friend’s, I cried, my throat burned, and as he covered her up, I sobbed. I sobbed as tried to forget the pain with the heat of a hot bubble bath to no avail.

Many will read this and say, “She’s just a cat.” No, she wasn’t. I rescued her when she was a kitten, abandoned on a hot asphalt with a skinned up head twelve years ago this summer. I watched her as she made her bed a flower pot. I took care of her during kidney problems. I hurt and prayed as I watched her suffer the effects of a poisonous mushroom seven years ago and I cheered her on as she fought back to survive, despite temporary blindness, deafness, and the start of organ failure. I watched her battle tapeworms a couple years ago. All the meanwhile, my rough tough walking tomboy of a girl feline won over my dog loving heart. While my other cat (rescued a year earlier) may be the ‘prettier’ one, the princess, Sweets was my lil feline dutchess. When she followed me to the car in the mornings, my days were good. When she greeted me with a meow and a headrub when I got home, any bad day was erased. And her kisses cheered me up as much as Wilbur’s did. And she knew how to give love (I taught her the sign in ASL, any time she was in the window, she’d give me love when she saw me coming). She still had several lives and several years in her. And they were robbed from her by two dogs an owner that does not bother to control and tame them. She’s not the first victim in the area from what we’ve discovered. And I’m afraid she won’t be the last until dog karma kicks in for those two.

Rest in Peace Sweets. I’m so sorry you had to suffer so much during your last two days on earth. You fought so hard–and I’ll miss you so much. Give the Wilburnator one of your headrubs for me when you see him…

Wilbur (1988 – 2002) & Sweets (1996 – 2008)

This lil guy headed for greener pastures on Friday (along with all the other calves my parents own). I tried unsuccessfully to convince them to keep him, especially after the lil guy decided to give my shoes some lovin’ last week (sorry, pictures not available as I couldn’t focus the camera to my feet quick enough!). Hopefully whoever purchased him at the auction will realize what a sweet lil guy they have and will treat him right.

And late this evening, my Sweets was out on the porch (she’s an outdoor kitty) when two dogs came up and attacked her. She’s had a rough life, having been dumped out as a kitten (we rescued her), then she ate a poisonous mushroom several years ago, which nearly killed her. When rescued from the clutches of the two dogs, she was raspy sounding and based on where the dogs appeared to have sunk their teeth in, I was afraid she was gonna be cut short of nine lives. A emergency visit to the vet, an xray, and some pain meds determined no broken bones/ribs, punctures to the diagphram (sp), lungs, or other major organs, but one very shook-up kitty who probably thought her life was over. She’s currently down for the count due to the pain meds, but any extra prayers you can send this way would be very much appreciated. She’s my lil Timex baby–takes a lickin’ and keeps on a tickin’.