More retrieving fun.

Last Thursday Luna and I spent another great afternoon at the park. This time I'd taken my DSLR camera with me instead of the small compact I had last time. It was still quite hard to get good pictures though, as it was windy and Luna was way too fast for me most of the time!

First things first; water!

Fun shot

Happiness

Stop takin' pictures already!

Look, the dummy is over there ma, let me go!

Well... alright then. ;-)

And there she comes! Ears up, yes Luna, I'm still here.

Speedy Gonzales comin' in!

Nearly there...

Yay! Homerun!

Round two. The dummy is up there, to the right of the stairs. Changed camera settings at this point, hence the different lighting.

And off she goes!

Up the hill... like I said at the top of this post, she was often too fast for me to get the focus right!

Got it!

She decides to takes the easy route back. This is fine with me, so long as, when I send her, she takes the route I've indicated to her. I LOVE this shot!

Whoohoo! Look at her go! ;-)

Lookin' at me, deciding to come down the hill here.

The flying dog!

Hi ma! I'm back! I love her happy face here.

Off to go get dummy nr. 3 around the corner.

And back already! Good pup!

Yihaa!

Not a great shot, but I'm putting it up anyway. Dummy nr. 3 is home!

A muddy, happy dog. Such a cute face!

Dummy nr. 4 is in there somewhere.

Yay, got it!

Hey ma, there you are!

Okay... did I mention she's a bit camera shy?! Or she's just blissed out because there's something in her mouth. That's option nr. 2.

A wink, of sorts.

And off to get another one. Not a very sharp shot, but I love seeing this speed too much to leave it out.

Dummy nr. 5, check!

More happiness!

Yuck, incoming dog! Quick, to mom! (Very nice person, she saw us working and immediately leashed her dog. Thumbs up!)

Here I come!

Yay, I made it!

Time for a water break.

*Grin*

My cute little girl

*Sigh*

Are you done now, ma?!

Retrieving amidst young trees.

I'm coming!

I've added this shot because it shows her technique nicely; we can see the dummy, she can't. She's going back and forth catching wind, which carries the dummies' scent, which will lead her nose to the dummy. Viola!

Got it!

Dummy in the middle of the shot. This one was much deeper than the other two, so she left it till last. For this one, she has to search deeper, and that is something she only does when she can't find any dummies closer to the edge. She was a little hesitant when I sent her to get this one, because she hadn't caught this one's scent before, so she wasn't sure there would be a third dummy. However, I said there was, so she trusts me and, when searching closer to me nets her nothing, she goes deeper and boom! There it is!

Coming back with the third (nr. 8 total) dummy. She's looking right because there was some noise, a woman loudly calling her dog who was harassing a horse.

Posing.

Coming back with dummy nr. 9 which was in the bush behind her. You can see a grey line, that's a dirt road. I've deliberately put that between us and the dummies, as it teaches her not to be stopped by boundaries. For dogs, a change in surface can be as much a boundary as a fence is. In this case, there's two boundaries; first the road, and then the line of trees which she has to enter in order to find the dummies.

Just for fun. ;-)

She loves to get up on stuff. This is a picnic table.

Well, as you can see we had a great time once again, I hope you enjoy the pics!