Some portrait tips

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

Today I would like to share some portrait tips, as some of my friends have asked how to take photos with a blurred background like this.

Before I tried it myself, I thought that you wouldn't be able to take such photos without a SLR camera like the one my Dad bought last year. But, Dad has given me some tips to take such photos with a compact digital camera like the one my Mum has.

Tips that Dad gave me are:

1) Choose a location with a far background
2) Use the Zoom function
3) Take a photo from a short distance from the subject

Zooming makes the depth of field ("the portion of a scene that appears acceptably sharp in the image" according to Wikipedia) shallower so that the background becomes out of focus. Here is the result of my experiment.


Attempt 1:

The background is too close.

Attempt 2:

The background has got a little blurred but not enough.

Attempt 3:

The background is blurred but a little too dark.

Attempt 4:

You can take a portrait with a blurred background even with a compact digital camera!!

Do you think I can call this experiment a success? Share more tips if you have any!

I am becoming a graceful lady!

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

Do you think that the title of this post doesn't suit me? If you think so, you are wrong. I AM becoming a graceful lady. I will explain why I can say so.

Graceful Cinnamon

Firstly I don't bark as much as I used to. In Mum's previous post she told you that I barked at other dogs a lot. But, it was actually all her fault! She didn't give me any guidance when I was not sure how to respond to other dogs. So, I had to bark at them to release my stress. But now, when I see another dog coming, I look at Mum, then she always gives me some treat. I still have to give a glance back at the dog after getting a piece of treat, but Mum gives me more treat if I give my attention back to her. So, I often repeat looking at the dog, then Mum, then the dog, and then Mum .... until the dog has gone out of sight.

To tell you the truth, it took me a few of months to learn a good behaviour like that. At first Mum tried to make me heel every time we had to pass another dog. It seemed to work for a while. But, over time I became more and more stressy when I had to deal with the anxiety while heeling. So, she stopped making me heel and instead started to give me lots of treat. However, it doesn't mean that Mum's effort to make me heel was fruitless. Heeling exercise taught me to stay close to Mum when walking on the lead with her and made it easier for me to give attention to her.

I am also learning to stay quiet when I am left alone while my humans are not home. I used to keep barking until my humans came home (When Cookie was with me, I didn't bark, because I didn't feel lonely. But, staying alone at home without Cookie made me think that I might be alone forever). But now I can even have a nap in my crate!

Lastly, my sniffing has become much less than before. Yes, at the dancing summer camp that I went to two weeks ago, I kept sniffing, making my Mum very unhappy. But, I have learnt from that experience that, if I keep my head up, Mum is happier and she might give me treats more often. As I sniff less than before, my heeling has improved too.



See? I am becoming a graceful lady!

Sweet Friends Award! ... and Beagle friends

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

My blog friends always brighten my day, and one of them has made me even happier by giving me an award called Sweet Friends Award!

The friend who gave me this award is Lexi the Great Dane, who I had met in person and played together at Honey the Great Dane's birthday party last November. Thanks so much, Lexi! I hope we can meet up for a walk or something soon!

The Sweet Friends Award has the following rules:

1. Copy the image and paste it to your blog.
2. List 10 things that make you happy, do one of them today.
3. Select 10 bloggers who brighten your day.

Here is a list of things that make me happy:

1. Hugs, cuddles, and lots of attention
2. Sniffing
3. Hound racing (lure coursing), i.e. running and chasing
4. Practising tricks and dancing
5. Friends, both real-world ones and bloggy ones
6. Balls, both big and small
7. Stuffie friends
8. Anywhere I can hide, e.g. behind a couch or under a bed or table
9. Mum and Dad
10. FOOOOOOOOOD!!!

Ten blog friends are too many to choose, so I have chosen the following three bloggers.

Jackal - He always gives me helpful tips on my training. Thanks!
Pepper - My new friend in New Zealand. She is a really smart puppy!
Chrissy - Her blog does brighten everyone's day!


Speaking of friends, I've been meeting so many Beagle friends lately. Is our popularity skyrocketing?

For example, last Wednesday and Thursday in a row, I met Louie at a nearby park by chance.



On Friday a woman talked to us, when I was walking with my Mum, and said "I have a Beagle! She had a swim for the first time yesterday!" Then, Mum and the woman had a little chat on a footpath, forgetting about me who was waiting beside Mum patiently and nicely.

On Saturday I met this new Beagle called Harvey at another nearby park.



And on Sunday I met Bella & Barry and Rosie at hound racing!



While I had met Rosie at hound racing several times before, I met Bella and Barry for the first time. Their humans found us in an article about our hound racing club in a New Zealand dog magazine "Fetch!"(Honey's human wrote the article!) and searched for information about the club on the Internet. Then, they came across my blog and contacted me by peemail. I was so happy to see new Beagles at racing! Louie who I met during the week had also been to racing before.



Hay, Beagles across Auckland! Come and join us!

Tongariro National Park

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

Today I will take you to a beautiful place called Tongariro National Park. It is the oldest national park in New Zealand, and it is one of the locations where The Lord of the Rings film trilogy was filmed.

The first day of our trip to Turangi was cloudy, so Dad, my cameraman, couldn't take as many good photos as he wanted. But, Sunday, the last day of the dog dancing summer camp, turned out to be a gorgeous day with blue sky, depsite a weather forecast of some showers.

After the dancing camp closed in mid-afternoon, we set out for a drive to Tongariro National Park.

My humans had been there before as tourists from overseas, and at that time, over fifteen years ago, they stayed at a famous hotel called "Chateau Tongariro." My mum had looked forward to their stay there, but unfortunately the hotel was under renovation then and the inside of the building was dim because the outside was covered with scaffolding. They were so disappointed that they shortened their stay from three nights to just one and checked out the next day. So, this time they wanted to see the hotel as it should look normally.

Shortly after we left Turangi and entered an uphill road to the national park, we found a sign of a scenic view point. From there, we could overlook the Lake Taupo.




We got back into the car and continued our drive, and then Dad found the hotel we were heading for in a long, long distance.



The hotel looked like a drop of white paint at the bottom of the mountains. When we came to the turning to the road to get to our destination, Mum found a "No Dogs Allowed" sign. But, we decided it should be OK if I stayed in the car, and we kept going.

Here it is. The hotel Chateau Tongariro!! It looked so beautiful sitting at the end of a golf course.



We wanted to go a little closer to the hotel, but we stopped there and turned around because there was another "No Dogs Allowed" sign. No dogs are allowed in the national park because the famous New Zealand native bird, Kiwis, live there and are protected.



The next day we came back to Auckland. Although Dad wanted to take photos of the beautiful Lake Taupo, he couldn't because of a heavy rain...

On the road to Turangi

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

In this post and the next one I will show you some places I visited on my trip to Turangi where the dog dancing summer camp was held.

As Turangi is well over a four-hour drive away from Auckland where we live, we made a couple of stops on the way. The place we stopped at for a lunch break is called Matamata, one of the sites where the famous trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" had been filmed.

My humans had been to the town to join a tour to visit an actual filming site a long time ago (The rolling hill is a private property, so you have to join a tour to visit there). This time we didn't visit the filming site, but we found something that you can feel some atmosphere of the film from.




We had a short walk under tall trees by the carpark next to the Visitor Information Centre. Those trees would have offered us a nice shelter from the sun, if the sky had been clear of the cloud.



A while after we hit the road again, I found a strange doggy monster in a town called Tirau. Dad told me that it is the Visitor Information Centre. Then, right after that, a sheep monster!!




The last stop was at Huka Falls. Look at this! I couldn't keep watching it, because I felt like I was about to be swallowed!!




After leaving Huka Falls, we drove along a huge lake called Lake Taupo and finally arrived at Turangi. It was the longest drive I had ever done, but I enjoyed all the way, watching the changing scenery!

Paws N Music National Camp 2010

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

I am back home from a special place where I was hiding. Nop, perhaps 'hiding' may not be the right word. On the weekend I was at 'Paws N Music National Camp 2010', the first event of its kind ever held in New Zealand.

As many of you know, I finished a beginner Paws N Music (tricks) course last December, and I am currently working on my very first routine with my Mum. But, choreography is not as easy as it sounds. Although I can do many tricks, putting them together into a routine is really hard. So, Mum was hoping to get some tips and ideas for making a dance routine at this summer camp.

The summer camp was held at Turangi Cabins & Holiday Park in Turangi, a small town located on the southern side of Lake Taupo in the middle between Auckland and Wellington, from Friday the 12th to Sunday the 14th. Nearly thirty dogs, mainly from Auckland and Wellington, attended the camp.

I had a really good time meeting so many new friends!! But, it seems my Mum is not as happy as I am. She says she is disappointed with me. Before we went to the camp, she thought she could show other attendees how good I was at dancing as well as tricks. But, she couldn't, because I was busy checking everything out there, doing my job as a Beagle, the scent hound.

At the end of the camp we did busking competitions in two groups, the beginners and the advanced. Each dog in the beginner group danced a one-minute routine that his handler had created in thirty minutes using music of her own choice with help from an advanced handler, and advanced dogs did real busking, where each dog performed a one-minute improvised dance after listening to music chosen by someone else for ten seconds.

In the beginner group, nine dogs performed, including me, and my turn was the sixth.

Before my turn came, my Mum took me to the kitchen of the facility (A BIG MISTAKE!!) to do some warm-up. I could see how nervous she was, as I could hear her heart beat. So, a while after my music started, I started putting my nose to the floor to ease Mum's tension. But, unfortunately it didn't work well. So, after doing some more tricks, I again showed her how to relax by sniffing the floor. After my turn, many people commented that my routine had been cute, so it must have been a success. But, my Mum looked really sad. Don't you think she is strange?

Now that the camp has finished and Mum must have learned a lot from other advanced handlers, we are supposed to focus on creating our first routine again. But, it seems Mum's latest plan is slightly different. She says that she is determined to stop my floor-sniffing (I don't understand why such a thing can be an objective!), so she might delay creating my long-waited routine...

Here are some more photos from the camp:

















From Cinnamon's Mum:
I would like to send many thanks to those who organised and helped for the camp. It was a great and special experience for me, as I had never attended a camp of any kind in New Zealand. It was so much pleasure to talk and spend a lot of time with others who share the same interest in dog sports, especially Paws N Music!!

I am hiding myself into a special place...

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

I am sorry I didn't post so long. I am hiding myself into a special place this weekend. When I am back home, I will tell you all about it!



I am in my crate in this picture. But, don't worry. I am not sick or anything like that. I am having a wonderful time here!!

Come? What does that mean?

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

Today my Mum is looking a little puzzled... She's been saying "Come" many times. Whenever she says "Come", I look at her. But, she doesn't look satisfied with my attention to her.

Yesterday in Roberta Reserve, where my winning photo in Niamh’s Train Your Dog Photo Contest had been taken, I had a great time practisng heeling, sit stays, stand stays, and recalls with my Mum. But, when I made a great dash to a far end of the park and started having a good sniff around trees, Mum yelled at me "Come! Cinnamon, Come!!" from a distance. Although the word "Come" somehow sounded familiar to me, I couldn't remember what it meant, so I just kept on sniffing and checking peemails.



After a while, a dog on a leash came into the park from behind the trees I was sniffing, so I went over to say hello to him nicely. But, his humans didn't look too happy. When I was wondering why they were not happy to see a little well-behaved dog like me, I was caught by my Mun on my collar.

But, never mind!! Anyway I had a wonderful time playing with two other doggies!




From Cinnamon's Mum:

It seems Cinnamon understands the command "Come" only jointly with other commands like "Wait", "OK", and "Go". I had been wondering why she sometimes ignored the command "Come" completely, and this morning I realised that she might not understand the command correctly. When I say "In front" (come and stand in front of me; a command I use in dog dancing), she comes without fail, but she often doesn't respond when I say just "Come." Hmmm, I may need to teach her the command from scratch...

I did it!! I won a prize!

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

I did it, I did it!! I was chosen as the winner of Niamh’s Train Your Dog Photo Contest! Can you believe it? I couldn't when I heard about it, as I hadn't got many votes in the readers' voting. But, it is TRUE!! Mum and Dad are SO happy too! See the result here.

This was my entry photo.

The judges thought this photo showed the relationship between Mum and me very well. What do you think? I really love practising tricks with my Mum. I wish I could practise more with her, but Mum says that she hasn't got time for it as she has to do things for her work.

As you know, I also entered the Hound Dogs group at the Mango Minster 2010 Dog Show. Although I couldn't get any prize in the show, I got this official Competitor logo as a proof of my participation! Doesn't it look cool?



I hope everyone has a great weekend!!



P.S.

I am back to my normal self now! Thank you for your concern about my sickness.

I am at rest

Reminder: Voting is now open for Niamh’s Train Your Dog Photo Contest and Tucker's Sit Stay Competition!!

Yesterday (Monday, the 1st) was Auckland Anniversary, a holiday in Auckland, so Aucklanders were enjoying the last day of the long holiday weekend. However, I had to stay in my crate all day yesterday, because I had been having diarrhea over the weekend.



On Sunday I went to Hound Racing and had three runs (The photo in my last post was taken then). I enjoyed it so much!! But, shortly after I had water before getting in the car to head home, I became sick and started vomiting. Of course, my Mum and Dad were so worried about me that they thought about taking me to the Animal Emergency Centre. But, unlike a year ago when I was hospitalised, I could still drink water and walk, so they decided to put me at rest in my crate and see how I would get along.

On Monday, my stool was still liquid-like and I vomited again in the morning. But, unfortunately it was a holiday, so I couldn't see my vet. Instead, my Mum and Dad did some research on the Internet and found that if a dog has diarrhea he shouldn't eat any food for a day or so, so I was not given any food last night and this morning.

Today, first thing in the morning Mum rang the vet to make an appointment. While I was waiting in the waiting area, I met so many dogs and cats! Perhaps, because yesterday was a holiday, many dogs and cats who couldn't see the vet yesterday rushed in the clinic this morning.

After taking my temperature and pulse and examining my tummy, my vet told me I was going to be all right. I was given an injection and prescribed some medicine. For three days from today I will be on a special low-fat prescription diet.

But, don't worry! I am already feeling much better.

Voting is now open at Mango Minster!!

Hi, it's Cinnamon!

Voting for the Hound Dogs Group which I have entered is now open at Mango Minster. It's closing at 5PM EST on February 1st. My photo entry is shown in the sidebar of this page.

You can vote here!!