i heart faces ~ pets

This week's photo challenge at i heart faces is all about pets! I've gotten some pretty incredible shots lately of animals (remember that tame squirrel at the park?*) so I had a really hard time choosing which one to submit. Since this is a pet theme though, I'll submit one of Charlie, our Labradoodle. Charlie is one year old and we got him from a breeder who donated him to our family because of Anna's special needs. I had hoped that Charlie would become Anna's dog and had intended on taking him through all of the delta training necessary to become a service dog. I had also hoped that he would sleep with her at night and alert us to any seizure activity. The good news is that Anna hasn't had a seizure since we got him (shhh! the 4th of July marks one year since her last seizure but we don't want to jinx the seizure gods by talking about that) so we haven't had a chance yet to see if he will detect seizures. As a result, I still sleep with her every night... maybe one day I'll sleep with my husband again. Charlie didn't bond with Anna as much as me so he's really become my dog. He is so funny and so human in many ways. He is a dog that is more than a dog, kwim?

I took this picture of Charlie a couple of days ago for my 365-Project and used my 50 mm prime lens. I love the DOF I got with his nose in focus and the rest of him gently blurring in the background. I used My4Hens Glee action from her Kiddy Pop collection (free!) but otherwise it is pretty much SOOC. I decided to use this picture because a photographer friend and fellow special needs mommy that I respect and admire so much told me, "It's a surprisingly human dog portrait." Good enough for me! Thank you, Mary!!!

Wow, there are already so many great entries! I'm number 364... I don't envy our judge this week! She is a teen photographer with an incredible gallery. Check out her work, Emilee Fuss, and be sure to visit i heart faces to see all of the fabulous entries this week. You can click this image to see a larger version.



* If you'd like to see all my animal and insect pictures, check out my Critter set on Flickr.

Thanks for looking and for visiting my blog!