The blog this week – 27 Feb, 2014

Just a quick snapshot of the posts for the past week ;)

Mongrel Barks

Saturday | Donna’s reaction to the Nose command 
The Nose to Hand command can be so practical in situations like moving the dog around without tugging on the leash and also really cool in canine freestyle. But what does Donna say?

Sunday | Keep your eyes on the rope toy, human
Four simple lessons from 1stWorldDog, that Donna shows can be universal truths. :)

Keep your eyes on the rope toy, humans!

And don’t forget to treat. ; )

Wednesday | Reinforcing Heel and why she LOVES it!
One of the things I am inconsistent about, besides training, is reinforcement and proofing. I know trained behaviours need to be continuously reinforced so that it is proofed to stick under various situations and environments, but it is yet another thing that chips away at the limited time we have. That happy face is good encouragement though. ;)

Photography Bytes

Tuesday | Snappy H’appy Photo Challenge – Watercolour
I try to fill each Snappy H’appy Photo Challenge post with relevant information that I find interesting for the Effect that we are exploring for the week. This week’s theme is Watercolor. So if you love to do more with your photos on your phone and find it relevant, click here and check it out!

Monday | The Kitchen Table
Did you ever trying styling buffet items for a food shot. Not easy, but it was fun. And the good thing about food photography is always … well, the food that you get to eat.

I thought this one came out rather interesting with the watercolor filter.

I’ve started adding some affiliate ads from Amazon to a small number of old pages on the blog, where relevant contextually. You may notice this box on the sidebar labelled “Donna uses this”, which lists a few products that have appeared on the blog before. All such ads are labelled advertisement, so you know. :) I don’t know what I’ll get out of it, if anything at all. :P

The last two days have been mildly frustrating as this blog keeps going down, something wrong with the hosting server. So I do apologise if you were unable to load the site properly, if at all, at times. I noticed I have lost a draft I was working on and that I had saved before the server problem. But after the site came back up, that saved draft was gone.

Backup is just such a pain right, but it’s absolutely essential when something like “omg the server crashed” hits you. So I’m now on VaultPress. They backup my data daily for $5/month. So, if you do more on your site than I do, e.g. you sell things or you’re liable to deliver content or numbers to an advertiser or like me, you just care deeply about every “golden” word you type :P Make sure you have backups, and that the backups include your entire database, NOT just a few templates. 

Anyway, next week Thursday is our blog anniversary, so check back here and see what else is different!  

Some of the posts that got me thinking or cracked me up from other blogs this week:

• Finding Romance at Kiyomizu Temple – If you had found my recent post on Kiyomizu-dera at night interesting, I totally recommend you check out Completely Disappear’s photos of the temple in the daylight.
• We’re training hand targetting right now, but paw targeting looks fun too :)
• Medicating ears, she makes it look so easy!!!
• When is it ok to run with senior dogs? (A vet’s point of view) – not that Donna is a senior dog yet, but this knowledge could come in handy in her old age :P… if I could ever get her and me running seriously!
• The real tips for running with your dog – apparently hunting dogs like to run with things in their mouths. How cute is that! Donna doesn’t do it, so you know she doesn’t have hunting dog in her genes :P

Thursday Barks and Bytes is hosted by 2browndawgs  and HeartLikeADog. 2Browndogs compares the Chesapeake Bay Retriever to the Rhodesian Ridgeback this week and Heart Like a Dog talks about a little lump on her dog Delilah.