I've been working on drawing several different breeds of dogs over the past few days. This is a screenshot of the French Bull Dog I have been working on for the past two hours tonight. 

Feedback

Last night I had a conversation with a photo & art education graduate from Montserrat. I spoke to her about my seminar topic and showed her the photos I've taken so far asking for some advice and feedback. She suggested drawing the images of the dogs myself because I would run into an issue with every photograph having a different quality and lighting as well as not working out well if they were printed at a large scale. The photos I have taken so far won't go to waste though, they will come in use when needing photo references for body positions and the like.

I've just spent a few hours experimenting with drawing some dogs trying to  figure out what style I want the dogs to be drawn in.

Tyler / Yellow Lab

Today I photographed Tyler, a Yellow Lab... who loves to eat snow.

After searching the term "pit bull" on Delicious.com I came across Pit Bull Rescue Central. Under Pit Bull Education - Materials is a PDF (listed below) of pictures of various dog breeds which most people mistake for a Pit Bull. Out of the 18 dogs listed there is actually only one Pit Bull. When I met Marie, the owner of Kitty Connection, she had told me about a similar test someone conducted to show that most people are wrong when they refer to a dog as a "Pit Bull". This could put into question the number of dog bites listed as being done by a Pit Bull, and possibly destroy the argument that this breed has the most dog bites recorded. I think the only way to clear the record would be to blood test every single dog which is reported to have bitten someone to see what the true DNA is, but that is something that would probably be impossible to do.

The test: http://www.pbrc.net/misc/PBRC_find_the_pitbull.pdf

The answers: http://www.pbrc.net/misc/PBRC_find_the_pitbull_key.pdf

Ruby & Rusty / Beagle-Mutts

Today I spent the afternoon trying to photograph my own two dogs (beagle-mutts). They were by far the more difficult dogs to photograph. One of my dogs, Rusty, was getting very nervous when I was saying commands like 'sit' 'paw' 'lay' and my other dog, Ruby, was very nervous about the sound the camera's shutter was making when taking photos. 

Penny / Pit Bull & Kitty Connection

Today I had arranged to meet with the owner of Kitty Connection, Marie. The purpose of the visit was to talk about general topics of owning a rescue and adoption organization and well as photographing some of the cats she currently has for adoption as well as her Pit Bull mix Penny.

She was very informative and knew exactly what she was talking about. Topics we discussed ranged from dog bites, to obedience training, to successful adoptions as well as disgruntled turned-down adoptees who were turned away because the organization didn’t feel that they were a good match for the cat or kitten they had originally set their hearts on.

A large part of our discussion was on the bad image Pit Bulls have. She showed me a dog prong collar (shown below) that she uses when she walks her Pit Bull Penny. She said that she didn’t like to use it because of the negative association it has to people and their assumption that it means the dog wearing it will bite or attack them. I had not been familiar with that particular type of dog collar. Marie explained to me the purpose of it’s design: If one dog were to try and bite another dog they would most likely go for the throat. This collar rests around the dogs throat and the prongs are, in a sense, in place of a dog’s teeth. When the owner yanks on the collar when it’s attached to the leash the collar will tighten up but not choke or do any actually harm to the dog. This shows the dog that the owner is the dominant one and to follow their commands. It is a great help when it comes to obedience training.

Marie suggested I browse through the organization’s success stories and possibly meet with a family that had to very young daughters who recently adopted a Pit Bull. As we were discussing this she brought up the story of how she came to adopt Penny, her Pit Bull. Another woman had originally adopted Penny. The woman called the organization and said the dog had been aggressive towards her. The organization suggested bringing Penny to a dog trainer they used with all their dogs to try and figure out why the dog was getting aggressive. At the dog classes Marie was present and Penny showed no aggression and was well behaved. The original adopter brought her back home and soon after she escaped. The Kitty Connection contacted other rescue leagues in hopes of finding Penny. She was missing for several weeks, there were posters put up, and dog traps set but it didn’t do anything. Then one day Penny just shows up at Marie’s front door (a few cities away from where the adopter lived) and she has been at Marie’s house ever since. She knew it was a sign that Penny was supposed to stay with her.

(Prong dog collar)

Click on the images to viewer them at a larger size.

Today I took photos of four different dogs - Duncan, Maggie, Gracie and Tucker.