The Photo Shoot

At work my husband and his team are developing a smart phone for the elderly. It has been getting pretty good press, called Raku Raku Smart Phone. So the thing is he came home the other day and said he was elected to bring in a photo to use on the phone as an example of something or other. It will be a default on all the phones. So we picked several photos for the Big Bosses to choose from, scenery, flowers, our trip to Hawaii. But we also added some of our ham. 

I present you with some of the photo shoot. These are the pictures that we didn't choose to hand over. The warming up, if you will. 

Okay, Cha, give me 'cute puppy'.

Good, good. 

Now give me 'pensive'.

Great!

How about 'thoughtful'?

Nice!

Can you do 'gangsta'?

Good boy!

Betcha can't do 'coy'. 

You're on fire!

Oh, no! is that an alien space craft landing? 

Can I have some 'worried'?

Have you done this before?

Here's a hard one. How about 'cool cat'?

Yes! Yes! 

Now let's see some 'sexy'.

Lassie eat your heart out!

There were a lot more photos. Better ones. No idea if they'll choose him or the shot of my roses. But if they do choose the mutt I've got this sneaking suspicion they'll be no living with him.

I'll have the steak tartare tonight, doggy biscuit on the side. Thank you.

Dog Run

Dog Run.

And boy that dog could run.

The lack of fenced in yards in Japan has led to a clever thing called a dog run. It's like an enclosed park but only for dogs. They've got water troughs, baskets full of balls and Frisbees, hurdles and tunnels, and what really made me giggle--dozens of curious spray bottles filled with charcoal water sitting around everywhere. These are to be used after your doggy does his business. Dog pee=master run for spray bottle. I'm easily entertained.

So today we took Cha. J warned me but I didn't listen. I had faith in my pup. I believed he wouldn't embarrass me. I believed.

Meet, Hana.

She's the vixen that has stolen Cha's heart. Stolen it and stomped all over it. But let's back up.

We arrived at the dog run curiously named JOIN at about 10 am and already there were 6 dogs: Hana (the little French bulldog/sex pot, above), a white German shepherd, an Italian greyhound and three shi tzus. Read things, signed things, decided against joining JOIN (50 bucks plus 30 dollar's worth of tickets for visiting, not to mention the pushy name) and I figured we do the daily trial (15 bucks). And good thing too.

This is how it started. Happy dogs all running around and sniffing each others' behinds. Happy, happy, happy dogs. Sniff, sniff, sniff. We're all friends here, right? And then Cha gets a whiff of Hana. His eyes glazed over and he goes all wonky.

Chase, chase, chase. Run, run, run. Sniff, sniff, sniff.

At first it was all cool. But cupid is a cruel, cruel, master.

Run, run, run, sniff, sniff, sniff.

And, Oh My Gawd, is trying to mount her?!

A mere five minutes into our visit and we had to separate Cha from Hana. We put him into the next fenced in lot. Then Ol Horndog starts running up and down the fence and howling. He's never howled in his life. Love sick. Hana just prances around all Come Hither and stuff. Man, we gotta get out of here.

Yeah, she might have been in heat (which in Japanese they call in "season", I learned). But still. So uncool. So, so uncool. I apologized and bowed and gave Hana generous ear scratches and we bolted after about fifteen minutes.

Home life wasn't much better because for two days he cried and whined and kept trying to open the car door telling us he's got a hot date and needs a ride. The keys are now kept on top of the refrigerator.

Lesson learned.

Here's a photo of Cha all hepped up on French bulldog-butt pheromones.

Yep.