Faux-dography

     By Lulu

As Andrew is busy today he has asked me to fill in. Well how could I say no? All I can do is yap and yelp so ‘no’ is outside my vocabulary. They have tried me with ‘sit’, ‘basket’ and ‘stay’. I humour them a bit. Sometimes I respond correctly. Sometimes I don’t. It depends on how many biscuits are on offer and whether I am feeling bolshy or not. We Pomeranians can be pretty difficult you know. I draw the line at ‘fetch’, ‘heel’ and all that other rubbish. I am especially difficult towards anybody who thinks I am a cat. Check out my teeth and I’ll show you whether I am a cat or not.

Anyway in Hong Kong it has gone from balmy and sunny to a pretty bone shuddering 14C in just 2 days. I am afraid I opted for the igloo last night. It’s actually a small dog-basket  (or small-dog basket if you prefer) that is vaguely igloo-shaped  if you really stretch the imagination. It’s not a real igloo. It stands to reason doesn’t it. It would melt indoors. But if the odd couple that adopted me think it looks like something the Inuit built, well good for them but Inuit it ain’t. It’s certainly cosy but compared to my main basket it is a bit cramped. I do get a rather nice pink pashmina to wrap around me. No idea where it came from but its better than that dreadful Nepalese blanket they give me sometimes. Must be 20 years old.

Anyway with the mercury falling he was muttering about ‘might bring some winter birds in’ and that meant out early with his camera. Good grief, he’s only going a couple of miles down the road but I saw the stuff going out of the door – tripod, a lens the size of a corgi, a camera body bigger than my biscuit bowl and all sorts of junk in his bag. And early? Well if you think 10.30am is early then I don’t. I wake up before 7am each morning and I’m starving. Then I have to wait for one of them to struggle downstairs, open the curtains, say  “did you sleep well, Lulu?” and count the biscuits (I’m on a diet apparently) before I can tuck into my breakfast.

So if, as he says, the birds are most active in the morning then I can understand why he never takes any decent photos. They’ve probably all gorged themselves on whatever garbage they eat and gone off for a snooze. They are just so disgusting. I saw one of them on the balcony the other day eating a caterpillar. How gross is that? And then it poo-ed all over the glass and the odd couple think that’s cool. When I make a mistake I get shouted at and my treats are withdrawn. Actually, sometimes it’s not a mistake. I just get so hacked off I deliberately leave a deposit somewhere. They freak out. Never fails. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Now and again they want to photograph me. I am pretty cute but I don’t like it when they use flash. He uses me to test his new cameras which is pretty regularly. I was upstairs once and saw a cabinet with some dials on the front. I thought he said it controlled the stupidity but if it does, it clearly doesn’t work as well as it should. Anyway, the thing is about 4 times my height and just stuffed with gear. How many cameras does a bloke need? I wouldn’t mind if he was half good but he’s so generic. I need to give him a lesson on hyperfocal distance. He can’t get his head around the difference between that and depth of field. Even a Red Setter knows that sort of stuff!!

To get back to the point, he arrived back home after lunch. Usual story. “Anything good?” “Not really.” At least he saw some drongos today. I thought they were Australians but apparently those are dingoes. Seems he spent ages chasing some weird looking butterfly and didn’t get a single picture. How fast can a butterfly fly? He did get a picture of a Peregrine recently so a butterfly should be pretty easy. But no. In the end it seems he photographed some ugly-looking things called terrapins. He said they are introduced so don’t count. “Hello, this is Mr. Terrapin”. That’s beagle level humour. We Pomeranians are much more sophisticated. Do you like this one? Why do Pomeranians make good photographers? Answer: because they are good at snapping at things. Hahaha. Beats a beagle any day……

Oh I have had enough of this. I’m going off to chew something. Preferably someone’s foot. I guess he’ll be back sometime but never mind. So to close, here is me in my prime.

Grrrrrrr.

Love & licks,

Lulu.