The Humbling Power of Working Labradors (And The Cutest Puppy Alive)
However, nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, could have prepared us for the frankly irresponsible cuteness of Bryn. Still very much a puppy, this pint-sized, bouncing ball of fluff was so ridiculously adorable he made a rainbow look like a tax form. He was sweeter than a candyfloss machine that’s gone rogue in a sugar factory, and within seconds, he’d mugged us all for our hearts.
Now, as a man who owns what I shall charitably call a small dog with no discernible volume control, a creature whose primary mission in life seems to be to test the structural integrity of my eardrums, it was a truly humbling experience. I mean, here I was, used to the crescendo of a canine tantrum over a dropped crumb, and then I met these four working Labradors.
They were magnificent. Sleek, focused, and possessed of a quiet dignity that suggested they'd all made head boy at whatever exclusive academy turns out these sorts of dogs (if Eton had a K9 department, these four would be polishing their prefect badges).
The thing about this line of work is that you never truly know what you're going to get when you point a camera at an animal. It can be a chaotic, tail-chasing palaver. But these dogs? Pros. The moment they delivered a polite, professional sniff of greeting, you just knew it was going to be a walk in the park, a very well-behaved, orderly, and beautifully illuminated park.
However, nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, could have prepared us for the frankly irresponsible cuteness of Digby.
Still very much a puppy, this pint-sized, bouncing ball of fluff was so ridiculously adorable he made a rainbow look like a tax form. He was sweeter than a candyfloss machine that’s gone rogue in a sugar factory, and within seconds, he’d mugged us all for our hearts.
The whole gang was here to show off their skills, and we quickly established that the idea of constraining these majestic creatures with something as tedious and dull as a lead was frankly an insult to their professional sensibilities. Leads are for dogs who attempt to debate the mailman. These dogs were here to retrieve, to perform, and to put on a show. And by Jupiter, a show they put on.
The Michael Phelps of Dogs: A Hilarious Riverbank Pet Portrait Session
Now, the pre-session correspondence was, as is often the case, a minefield of vital domestic intelligence. Crucially, I learned two things: first, that I was to leave my Stetson at home, a sensible precaution, no doubt, given the general skittishness of the modern subject; and second, that Eddie was, to put it mildly, the Michael Phelps of the dog kingdom. That is to say, a creature possessed of an unwavering, almost pathological, need to hurl himself into any body of water, regardless of temperature or depth, at the earliest possible opportunity.
It was about a month back that Eddie's mum, bless her cotton socks, decided to commission me for a portrait of her lad, the resulting masterpiece (if I may be permitted a modest cough of self-praise) intended as a rather spiffing gift.
Now, the pre session correspondence was, as is often the case, a minefield of vital domestic intelligence. Crucially, I learned two things: first, that I was to leave my Stetson at home, a sensible precaution, no doubt, given the general skittishness of the modern subject; and second, that Eddie was, to put it mildly, the Michael Phelps of the dog kingdom. That is to say, a creature possessed of an unwavering, almost pathological, need to hurl himself into any body of water, regardless of temperature or depth, at the earliest possible opportunity.
With this aquatic propensity hanging over us like a meteorological inevitability, we agreed upon a riverbank rendezvous. The plan, a masterpiece of optimistic delusion, was to nab a few stately portraits on dry land before the Tom Daley-esque plunge into the wet stuff commenced.
Ah, but life, as I've learned from years of observing its relentless tendency toward the inconvenient, rarely respects a carefully laid plan. It transpired that hats weren't the only thing our canine hero wasn't keen on. Apparently, the sight of a middle-aged chap, hair thinning, trousers slightly too tight, wielding a large, black, expensive looking camera also gave him, to use the modern and thoroughly peculiar parlance, "the ick."
The stately portrait session thus quickly devolved into a frantic, game of Whac-A-Mole, with me desperately pointing the lens at whichever clump of bracken or patch of shrubbery his little black and white face happened to pop out of next.
A strategic retreat was clearly in order. We wisely agreed that chasing a ball or a stick, especially if it involved a good deal of splashing, might prove a more fruitful endeavour.
So it was that I found myself, knees crackling like an ancient bonfire in protest, crouched low on the muddy riverbank. A stick, the holy grail of all dogdom, was launched in my general direction, swiftly followed by a torpedo of black and white fur and a splash that could have drowned a small village. I think it’s fair to say our furry water-baby was finally, gloriously, in his element.
Several minutes, and hundreds of clicks of the shutter later, we had a very happy, dripping dog, and, praise be, a truly glorious set of images. It just goes to show you, sometimes the greatest photographic success comes not from high art, but from embracing the glorious, muddy chaos of a dog doing what he loves. And not wearing a hat.
