Airborne with Uncle Adrian, and other tales from the dog beach

Piper is the Queen of Boing. She boings for everything. She boings so much that it has seriously inhibited her agility career (she boings UP not forward. No jump required!!). Whatever, I think it's funny. She can even jump rope 'cuz of the boinging. So anyway, her two favourite things to do are a) boing at whoever has the Chuck-It and b) have a ball in her mouth and do this crazy devil spinning at whoever has the Chuck-It. The latter is too fast to catch with the camera, and I am so used to the former that I don't really photograph it. But today I turned and snapped off a shot that I liked the composition of. So here she is, the Queen of Boing:

It's been a while since Piper busted out some Mad Teeth, but she gave some to Woo today when he body slammed her in the ocean. I don't know if she is mellowing with age or what the deal is, but she isn't showing off the pearly whites as much these days. So I figured this one needed documenting.
(Do you kinda dig the expression on Woo's face too? Screwed up his eyes while praying for courage and plowed on in? Funny little Woo.)

And here is Piper just being Piper. I liked how Red Dog snuck into the shot and is totally happy about it too. He was in LOTS of shots that I took today, come to think of it. I think he is getting better at anticipating where the ball is going to go, since with his bad elbows he has no chance of getting to it first.

And speaking of Red Dog, I just think he is so darn handsome. I titled this photo "The Perfect Man" because, well, he is! If only he were human. *sigh*

You can see how he rocks his weight back onto his hindlegs to take the pressure off his elbows, makes him look a little like a hunchback. But it seems to do the trick, and I think he looks pretty damn fab for an old dog who could barely walk two weeks ago. I wuv him!!

So onto more red dogs. I believe I mentioned a few posts ago about my concern that Tweed and Laars look an awful lot alike. Sometimes, when they are at a distance, I can't tell them immediately apart ... especially now that Laars has learned to swim (who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?), and when the two of them strike out into the ocean for the ball they may as well be a single dog.

So here is Laars

And here is Tweed

And here is Laars-Tweed, or Tweed-Laars. Eerie, no?

So now we move on to Woo, who is the real reason anyone reads this blog anyway (Hi Dana!). Woo likes to play this game with sticks, that we call the "I'm gonna getcher Wootie stick!" But you have to say it exactly like I do, which is in a creepy, shrieky voice while hunched over and holding out your hands, the fingers of which are wiggling menacingly, as you advance upon the rapidly more stressing Mr Woo. This game upsets Woo to NO end, and causes him to hunker down over his prized stick, put his ass in the air and bark and growl at you before taking off with the beloved stick (which, btw, came home with us ... and is in a million pieces on my carpet. I've already incurred one splinter as a result)

This is the Wootie stick game, summed up in one photo:

This photo is relative to nothing. I just like it. I call it "Warrior Woo." That sounds romantic, but really I think he was scanning the beach goers for treat-potentials.

And just a couple of random dogs from the beach. This Lab made, hands down, the funniest shaking face I have ever seen:

And here is a photo called "David and Goliath"

In other news (because of course the above was breaking news), I have donated a photo session to the silent auction fundraiser at SAINTS, being held on May 12th. It's for a good cause, so check it out:

http://www.saintsrescue.ca/news/2007/auction/silentauction.htm