Doleful Dog Days - and Lazy Sunday Afternoons

Today I became the Dog Stroller.

Sundays are for family and so day down at my Dad's and Milo, his rescue centre Jack Russell Milo and I went for a bit of a ramble up on the Common, just within the boundary of the New Forest.

I'm the only one who takes Milo for such walks, everybody else is either far too old or in the case of my brother, a very bad knee (major surgery bad) prevents the steep hill up there being tackled. But living on a farm he always gets plenty of exercise under his own steam, though. Milo ALWAYS knows my role when I visit and so I get extra attention via wags and lots more wags!

He runs on ahead, sniffing this and getting distracted by that - you know how dogs are when out in the freedom of an open space frequented by rabbits, badgers, deer and ponies. And of course, other dog walkers with their hounds.

This time though there was some extra excitement. As we came back down the track on the longer way home, Milo, as usual, was several hundred metres in front of me, down the hill. At a T-junction, I next saw two great lumbering shaggy hounds race from left to right. Then, just like out of Tom and Jerry cartoon, I saw what they were chasing - a white backside and streamlined outstretched tail of Milo...

Their owners were not to be seen and I was too far away myself. Listening keenly, I could not hear the commotion I was dreading, no snarling or worse. Next thing I know, two lumbering shaggy hounds bombed past me up the hill that I was coming down. Still no sign of their owners.

Getting to the bottom of the hill, no Milo. The family who had the fearsome twosome were just coming into view. Obviously the dogs weren't fearsome, just young and energetic and were tearing round like atomic powered farts...

I expected to see Milo waiting for me further along. No sign of him. I was NOT going to start calling for him. I got onto the mobile and phoned my brother. Yes, Milo had just raced home, no doubt tail between his legs, a little.

He had to wait for me to dry him off, muddy and wet, my Aunt would have had exploded if he had gotten onto the furniture and Milo didn't seem too shaken up.

One good thing about a worn-out dog at roast dinner time is that they somehow sleep through it all and don't ask for titbits. And they pose for shots like this....

Lens is Nikkor 18-200mm VR - a good superzoom which ably covers a huge focal length range and thus makes it ideal when only carrying one lens. I had to manually focus this one but check out the natural light levels with the slow hand-held shutter speed and high iso - The VR is ridiculously effective! I was not going to disturb his snoozing by a blinding bit of on-camera flash! I'm peering around my Aunt's sprouting hyacinth bulbs on my hands and knees - I rather like them in the shot.

So, a great day all round. Relatively lazy and always good to catch up with family, of course.

Huge thanks to ALL for getting my fisheyed starry night sky way up to the top of Spotlights! Bless you!

One Year Ago - thumbnail below right - without doubt my best ever live music photo.