April 3, 2013 - Psycho Dog!

[SPUCK]

In an effort to um, ah, well, provide a more balanced coverage, in light of the many cat postings lately, I offer two shots of my dog Jake. He's half Rat Terrier and half Rhodesian Ridgeback. Weighs about 35lbs. Has a perfect ridge with dual swirls that all the purebred owners sulk about and everyone else asks why he's so angry thinking his hair is standing up.







When he wants to play catch he brings his ball over and requests playment. His entire world shrinks to The Ball and not letting it get away. He caught me lying on the floor trying to write software. I had my new camera with a very fast lens on it and wondered if I could actually get a picture of him catching the ball.

All his movements are so fast your eye can't follow it. He is blindingly fast. Shocking fast. I've thrown the ball past him and he's accelerated from standing still to up beyond the balls speed to where he's running next to it and once the relative velocity has reached zero he closes in and essentially plucks the stationary ball out of the air. All in perhaps four paces.

Here I'm throwing the ball at his face and triggering the shutter at the same time in a fairly dark room.

The second pic is him just waiting for me to 'look' like I'm about to throw the ball. As soon as a throw looks eminent he retracts the pink heat exchanger and goes into Focus.