Capturing the Uncapturable: Photographing a Hyperactive Dog (and My Chocolate-Fueled Efforts)
The truth, as it often is, was rather humbling. No matter how many chocolate eggs I might ingest in the name of energy, I could no more keep up with Cooper than I could suddenly understand the offside rule. He was a force of nature, a four-legged testament to the sheer, unadulterated joy of simply being and moving. And I, well, I was mostly just muddy. And slightly sticky. But you know, in a rather satisfying sort of way.
Ah, Sunday. A day of rest, reflection, and in my case, the rather ambitious notion of powering my weary frame with a frankly heroic quantity of chocolate. One might reasonably assume that such a sugary onslaught would leave me buzzing with the boundless enthusiasm of a small child at a party fuelled by E-numbers and fizzy pop. You'd think, wouldn't you? That I'd be ready to leap tall buildings, or at the very least, keep pace with… well, anything that moved with even a modicum of purpose.
But then there was Cooper.
Cooper, you see, had recently celebrated his second birthday, a milestone apparently marked by a solemn vow to personally investigate the aerodynamic properties of every available patch of ground in the vicinity. His greeting was a mere nanosecond of polite nasal investigation before he was off again, a small, furry comet on a trajectory of pure, unadulterated zoom. The idea of him pausing for a dignified portrait? About as likely as finding a polite badger at a tea party.
Thankfully, the unflappable Chloe and Dan were old hands at this particular brand of high-octane fluffball. They executed a truly impressive feat of canine choreography, somehow "encouraging" Cooper to hurtle towards the lens while they themselves perched precariously on either side of a riverbank that looked suspiciously like it had been liberally buttered.
My trusty camera, a veteran of countless windswept vistas and stoic sheep, was called into action. It was a small comfort to discover that my fingers still remembered how to dial in a shutter speed usually reserved for capturing bullets in mid-flight. And so there I was, prone in the damp earth, sounding rather like a demented woodpecker as I unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of clicks, desperately trying to freeze this furry blur in time.
The truth, as it often is, was rather humbling. No matter how many chocolate eggs I might ingest in the name of energy, I could no more keep up with Cooper than I could suddenly understand the offside rule. He was a force of nature, a four-legged testament to the sheer, unadulterated joy of simply being and moving. And I, well, I was mostly just muddy. And slightly sticky. But you know, in a rather satisfying sort of way.