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Passing Friends

RAMWolff

Wolff Playing with Beez!
Contributing Artist
Hugs to you Hornet. I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope your health improves! Take good care!
 

Hornet3d

Wise
Hugs to you Hornet. I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope your health improves! Take good care!
Thank you for the hugs they are very welcome at this point in time as I am finding my life in turmoil at the moment. I have a lingering cough that makes it difficult to sleep which does not help but also, with the passing of the dog, my day to day life is changing and not without some difficulty.

For example am trying to stay active having lost the drive to take walks each day thanks to the dog. With no dog to have to keep an eye on I have gone back to an old hobby of photography but find with my advancing years I cannot carry my DSLR outfit very far. Determined not to be beaten I have purchased a bridge camera which, while not up to the same quality, is very much lighter. Now of course I am finding the programming quite complex as it does so much, including 4K video that I find intriguing. It also means I am also selling my old photographic kit on eBay, quite successfully surprisingly, but I do find eBay can be hard work at times particularly when one courier (who will remain nameless) manages to lose and large Manfrotto monopod somewhere in their system. I paid a fair amount for 24 tracked, it being such a large item, and all that they have managed in three weeks is to collect and then promptly lose it.
 

RAMWolff

Wolff Playing with Beez!
Contributing Artist
WOW. Remind me to stay away from EBay if I ever decide to sell my comic book collection.

I'm sure as an experienced photog you probably don't think much of phone cameras or that sort. My friend Fred (RIP) was a huge photog and lugged around heavy equipment but when he discovered digital cameras he fell in love and never looked back. Not sure what ever became of his old equipment, he was very sentimental so I'm sure his sister, Christy, probably got all that stuff as she was or is into that as well.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
WOW. Remind me to stay away from EBay if I ever decide to sell my comic book collection.

I'm sure as an experienced photog you probably don't think much of phone cameras or that sort. My friend Fred (RIP) was a huge photog and lugged around heavy equipment but when he discovered digital cameras he fell in love and never looked back. Not sure what ever became of his old equipment, he was very sentimental so I'm sure his sister, Christy, probably got all that stuff as she was or is into that as well.

On the whole, eBay is OK and I have made enough money this time around to pretty much cover the cost of the new system which includes camera, camera bag, wireless flashgun, memory cards, lightweight monopod (which doubles for a walking stick for when my knees are bad), lightweight tripod, wireless shutter release, video light, external microphone, batch of filters and a selection of memory cards. It is a lot of gear but I don't intend taking it with me every time I go out. The camera bag is about the third of the size of the rucksack I used it is all less than half the weight.

Like lot of things, eBay itself is OK but you have to find a courier that you can trust to, quite literally, deliver and have to put up with some buyers who cannot understand you will not accept an offer of £130 when you have already told them you had rejected an offer of £150 from another potential buyer, when you rejected their first offer of £120. Or the individual that askes what is included in a sale when it is not only set out in the listing but each item has also be photographed.

The image sensor in the camera I have is about the same size as some for the top of the range phones so I certainly don't look down on mobile phone photography. Where the camera differs is the programmability, it has around ten function buttons you can configure to work in fifty or more different ways and a menu system that has around seven sections many with around seven pages of options. It even emulates a phone in many ways in that the back display screen doubles as a touchscreen when programming.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
ENJOY sir. Post some of your photos! G'night
Well having learnt the basics of setting up the new camera I have started give it a trial. The most obvious discoveries are the camera shows potential and the greatest limitation at the moment is the user.........Me. Boy, any photographic skills I my have possessed have become rusty.

Trial 1HW.jpg


Trial 2HW.jpg


Trial 3HW.jpg
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
Well having learnt the basics of setting up the new camera I have started give it a trial. The most obvious discoveries are the camera shows potential and the greatest limitation at the moment is the user.........Me. Boy, any photographic skills I my have possessed have become rusty.

View attachment 78026
Looking good Hornet! I'm especially liking the owl in the first scene. :)
 

RAMWolff

Wolff Playing with Beez!
Contributing Artist
Your skills are still present and accounted for. Gorgeous photos of those owls.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
Looking good Hornet! I'm especially liking the owl in the first scene. :)

Your skills are still present and accounted for. Gorgeous photos of those owls.

Thank you both, owls are one of my favorite subjects quickly followed by other birds and wildlife although the occasional picture of a steam train tends to slip in here and there. I need to use the new camera a lot more so that it becomes instinctive and I can concentrate more on the subject matter.

On the plus side it is getting my wife and I out walking now we are missing the excuse we had for our daily walks in the past.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
Well 2024 is taking a path I never expected, firstly we have sold the car as we were only doing just over 1000miles a year so it was spending 90% of it's time on the driveway. When we did go out in it the roads here in the UK the potholes of a few years ago I have been left so that now they are getting closer to bomb craters. Add to that we had three near misses recently and it can't be just my driving two were with my wife driving.

End result is we are using taxis and buses a little more but, for the most part we walk. The only real downside has been that all this walking has reminded me I am missing a friend who used to share our walks. There is no complete answer to but a visit to the rescue centre has provided some sort of solution.

My new walking companion.

Day 1 Four.jpg
Day 1 One.jpg
Day 1 Three.jpg
Day 1 Two.jpg
Tooper 1.jpg
Tooper 4.jpg
 

Hornet3d

Wise
What a cutie!

Thank you. Yes he looks the part but get him close to any other dog and you have something akin to the Hound of the Baskervilles on your hands, Clearly he has never been socialised with other dogs despite him being 3 years and 5 months old. Still our last dog was the same when we brought him home so it should just be a question of time and effort. Surprisingly he has settled in to the home very quickly as though as if he has always been here. First night he crept out of his nice new crate and settled at the bottom of our bed. Still the crate is still there to give him a quiet place to hide should it all become too much for him.
 

RAMWolff

Wolff Playing with Beez!
Contributing Artist
What a sweet boy. Congratulations on getting this companion. I don't own a car so I know that walking is important as are friends with cars or public transport. ENJOY your walks!
 

Hornet3d

Wise

Looks can be deceptive. We have quickly found that this dog is indeed cute around the home but get easily over excited but that is easily dealt with. Outside is a different matter other dogs and birds send him into a manic frenzy with him barking incessantly and scaring everyone around. Final straw came today when he barked at a young girl and she went off crying. We apologised to the father who was with her and he was very good about it but still made us feel awful, the only real positive was that he did not try to bite her.

Thing is the rehoming center put aggression markers on this dog saying he was aggressive with people, but not with other dogs sand that he had to be muzzled when visiting the vets as he tried to bite their vet. They also claimed he chases bikes and cars and tires to bite anyone attempting to stroke or groom him.

Reality is, with the exception of the little girl, he has so far been great with people. We took him to the vets, the same vets we have been using for the ten years we had our last dog. Although we had the muzzle ready to use the vet wanted to try without and Topper turned out to be the perfect gentleman. He was slightly spooked when she went behind him but certainly not aggressive and did not react even when she injected him with his vaccine. She came to the same conclusion we have, in that we suspect that the previous owners never walked him and so the outside world is alien to him and it scares him. This is a situation that has been played out over the last year with people getting dogs during the Covid lock down and now they are struggling as life gets back to normal. As a result the rescue centers are now being swamped with dogs with little or no training but a lot of issues.

Trouble is the incident with the young girl bothers us and while we cannot undo what has happened we do not want a repeat so we are buying in some professional help. We have found a company that has been going for years, has great reviews and has won a few awards and have paid for some 1 on 1 training sessions with him.

This dogs has so much potential but we are convinced he has not been given a fair start, he deserves to have at lease one shot at a happy life.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
Hopefully he can be helped. Cute critter.

Thanks. We are very hopeful he will develop into a great dog, if we can get him to be less fearful outdoors we think he will go on to be fabulous. Indoors he is so relaxed and you would think he has been living with us for months, so if we can get him to relax outside we should see the real dog shine through.

The 1 to 1 sessions are not cheap but we are committed to giving him the best shot we can afford.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
So the had the trainers over for a couple hours and the change in Topper has to be seen to be believed. We are now able to get him very relaxed before any walk and how to read his body language. We have had two 45 minutes walks with him at heel on a relaxed lead and we can pass within a foot of so of other dogs with no reaction. The trainer is back in a week to work on longer distance recall and the try and get Topper to walk with his dog.

We are under now illusions that this is just the beginning and there is a lot of work for us ahead, but there are now the first signs we can bring out the stunning dog that is hiding under the surface.
 

Dakorillon (IMArts)

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
So the had the trainers over for a couple hours and the change in Topper has to be seen to be believed. We are now able to get him very relaxed before any walk and how to read his body language. We have had two 45 minutes walks with him at heel on a relaxed lead and we can pass within a foot of so of other dogs with no reaction. The trainer is back in a week to work on longer distance recall and the try and get Topper to walk with his dog.

We are under now illusions that this is just the beginning and there is a lot of work for us ahead, but there are now the first signs we can bring out the stunning dog that is hiding under the surface.
Oh, I'm so happy for you!
 
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