Our master dog bed stealer on Christmas Eve. My wife made this bed years ago out of pillows when we first got our dog Ellie. It is also a favorite of our cat Sam who likes the crevices the pillows create.
Tag: Boo
Boo at One
We don’t know Boo’s birthday but he was probably a little over one year old when I took this picture of him as he snuggled in my lap in early December. He’s doubled in weight since we got him but more importantly, the once terrified little fellow is now a happy part of our family.
I got the Canon EOS M mirrorless camera specifically for pictures like this, the little snapshots that won’t mean much to most but mean a lot to me. Composing through the screen instead of a viewfinder meant I could put the camera where I wanted it, so the camera could be at Boo’s eye level instead of mine. The compact 22mm pancake lens is also surprisingly good, although the lack of image stabilization in either the body or the lens limits how much I use it.
The Endlessly Bendy Boo
This is Boo at the end of August, he was about 9 months old and had been with us for just under two months. His sleeping position didn’t look comfortable to me but it was one of his favorites. He was skinny enough then to pull it off but it’s not so easy now that he’s grown to full-size.
Boo the Photobomber
While our oldest cat Emma remains our photobomber extraordinaire, young Boo is learning fast.
The Bed Thief
While Sam would occasionally sleep in one of Ellie’s beds, particularly the homemade one, the thieving of dog beds began in earnest in late July. Coincidentally, this is also when Boo was given free reign of the house. This is Boo on his first day out after a couple of weeks in isolation in my wife’s office in the basement. That week began his gradual introduction into the house at large, we’d let him out for a while but at night or when we were away we still kept him isolated.
Boo was shy and nervous when we adopted him and you could see on his face how exploring the house and meeting the pets was both exciting and exhausting for him, so we paced his introduction even slower than normal. Several times on this first day he’d go up and explore the ground level and meet the other pets and then come back down to Ellie’s dog bed for a little rest. The bed was right outside my wife’s office so he could enjoy a taste of his newfound freedom and yet easily scoot back in to his comfort zone if needed.
He showed little fear of Ellie from the start, and for her part, she was nonplussed by the arrival of the little fellow. So when he stole her bed, she laid down beside it on the hard floor, making life a little easier for the kitten as he began to understand what it meant to be home.
Spooning
Peace, love, & understanding.
“I Bet My New Dog Bed Sure Is Nice”
Every time I read the headlines of the day’s news, I wish I could sprinkle a bit of Ellie’s personality on everyone around the world. We replaced one of her dog beds but the cats took to it before she had the chance to try it out. She settled for the carpet rather than drive the interlopers out.
They don’t come any sweeter than our Ellie.
HypnoCat
Don’t look directly into his eyes!
Me & Sam & Boo & Who
Sam and Boo snuggle up on my legs as we watch Doctor Who.
The Unexpected M
I’ve mostly used SLR’s for everything I shoot but for a while now I’ve suspected I’d be happier with multiple cameras targeted at different uses. Most of all I wanted something less obtrusive than my SLR for shooting the pets, or possibly something with better quality in the low light I shoot them in. There were a number of potential candidates amongst full-frame cameras, quality fixed-lens compacts, or mirrorless cameras.
On the day we adopted shy little Boo I could wait no longer so it was time to choose. That choice was Canon’s EOS M, surprisingly so since I was rather disappointed with it when it launched the previous year. But the price had plummeted to less than $300 for the camera and its 22mm pancake lens, and at that price the flaws of the camera suddenly became easier to bear. I’ve never spent so little on photography and received so much in return.
I’ve rarely shot with my SLR since. I still use it for wildlife shooting and anything that requires fast camera work, but for nearly everything else it’s been the charming little M.
Am I glad I waited so long to order it? Yes and no. On the one hand, the camera’s flaws would have been hard to live with at its debut price. On the other, perhaps I could have gotten a picture of Scout sleeping on me like this. But such is the clarity of hindsight, I had no reason to expect she’d die so relatively young.
I can’t change the past, only learn from it, and so by now I have pictures of all the pets sleeping on me. Sometimes all at once. On this occasion it was just me and Boo, snuggled in between my legs, one of my favorite shots of him.
Boolie 