His name was Brinkley

a purebred Australian Shepherd puppy

He was fully pedigreed, and if I remember correctly his owners had either registered him with the AKC, or were in the process of getting his papers. They owned his father, named Brisbane, whom they had provided as sire to Brinkley’s litter. He was seven weeks old, and SO cute.

So of course, I wanted to shoot him in my little home pet-photography studio. This was basically a setup on a table with background paper and three lights. So the model is at about waist level to the photog.

Brinkley lived two or three doors down from us, and we borrowed him for a day. He was a good little model. My lady kept him distracted with toys and treats as I danced around in front of the table, shooting and adjusting the lights. She and I made a pretty good team.

We worked him so hard that he started getting tuckered out.

By the end of the session he could hardly stay awake!

His owner said that he slept for several hours after we returned him.

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Aussies. My siblings and I were raised by one. She was a cow dog on the dairy farm next door, and was brought to our house when she got too old to herd cows into the barn. But she wasn’t ready to retire yet. So instead of cows, she started herding children.

One day, we decided to go into the woods behind our home for a picnic. Mother packed our lunches and off we went… a little farther than we’d ever been before. We found a huge stump the size of a table, and sat down there to eat.

And then we realized that we didn’t know which way home was. We were lost! We wandered around, scared, confused and eventually crying. It was at that point that Queenie started running off away from us. “No, don’t run off, Queenie!” we called, but she wasn’t having it. So we started running after her so that she, too, wouldn’t be lost.

She wasn’t lost. She was leading us back home. At one point I saw the outline of the back side of our barn through the trees, and then I knew where we were. Queenie led us home!

We tumbled back into the house, all trying to tell at the same time the story of how Queenie had saved us.