As I mentioned last time, Julia received a shiny purpley-pink camera for her fourth birthday and we have commenced, at her request, documenting the local puppylife on our nightly walks (when we remember to take along the camera).

Unfortunately, we had something of a dry spell over the last week. Despite the town’s preponderance of puppies, we hadn’t seen any new puppies close enough to photograph (when we remembered to take along the camera). Julia took all of these pictures (except the tree at the end, which she thought was scary) her very self.

Last night, we went into the unseasonably cool air and scored a bumper crop of canines.

Pebbles
Sue up the street has adopted this five year-old pup, Pebbles. Pebbles is a cute little cocker spaniel with a well-considered fear of larger children. She loved Benny when she saw him the other week, but he’s more her size. Pebbles is just getting used to the neighborhood, so she deserves a little leeway until she can get used to the local pre-K fauna.


Strider
Strider is a strong two year-old boy who was barely restrained by his owner. As I didn’t have my notebook, I didn’t whether it is Strider, a.k.a. Aragorn, or Stridor, the peculiar wheezing breathing that necessitated a trip to the ER when Julia was two. Julia got admirably close to receiving a knock-down slobber-load of puppy love from this friendly beasty, but she held her ground and got her shot. As you can see, Strider is easily distracted.

A.K.A. Molly
Alright, I forgot my notebook and didn’t retain the name of this yellow lab mix, thereby totally screwing up the documentary process. Since neither of us could remember her name, Julia offered the default “Molly,” which she gives to all new otherwise nameless stuffed animals as sort of a baseline until she can come up with something better. (We have one permanent Molly, a stuffed moose that accompanied us to the ER when Julia wanted to give a demonstration of Stridor breathing. It still wears her bracelet as a collar.) Molly, we are told, is normally a more energetic pup, but she just finished her evening constitutional.

While Julia couldn’t remember Molly’s real name, she could remember the stoop a few doors down where The Little Boy Fell On His Head. In short, on a previous Spring evening, we passed by a house where a little boy, his sister and dad were out on their front porch enjoying the season. The boy, probably about three or four, wanted to show us his trick, which ostensibly involved a degree of balance he had not mastered, and ended with him bonking his head on the pavement. Fortunately, his daddy was “a doctor and scooped him up and saved him,” as Julia tells it. I suspect Julia is correct, they have a sign warning of an “Attack Doctor” posted on their porch rail.

This was two years ago, and Julia still retells the story every time we pass by the house.

Roscoe
Roscoe is the ironically butch name of a wee bichon frise/shih tzu mix who lives in Alex’s house. Alex is a friendly four-soon-to-be-five year old who also wanted to invite us in to see his cat and hermit crabs. Sadly it was getting too late to take him up on his offer. Alex’s parents plan on holding him back a year, so we may meet him again in kindergarten.

The Scary Dead Tree
I took this one. It is a scary tree of the sort that might abduct Robbie Freeling from his bedroom and attempt to eat him. But it is just a distraction, where’s Carol Ann?

All photos courtesy of Julia Rose Lester

My lovely daughter Julia got a new camera for her fourth birthday. It replaces the camera we had given her previously, a lovely Nikon point-and-shoot whose shutter never completely opens. (It created arty little Lomo-esque shots, mostly of her feet, her brother and various toy animals.)

Grammy wisely eschewed the bulky cameras-for-kids that V-Tech and Fisher Price produces and picked up a purple low-end dimestore point-and-shoot for Julia. It is one of those ubiquitous no-name brands. It was also cheaper, with higher resolution, than the for-kids models and has an essential LCD screen, which I believe all the for-kids cameras lack.

Of course, as soon as she got it, she wanted to take pictures of puppies. She’s a puppy-lovin’ freak, my girl. Fortunately, we live in a puppy-lovin’ town, so I told her that we’ll take pictures of the puppies of Jenkintown, our wee burg, and once we get a satisfactory amount of snapshots, we’ll make a book.

Last night was our first real Nice Walk of Spring (thanks to the rains), so she brought her camera along, of course. We had a late start, so we didn’t catch the height of the parade of perambulating pups. Our first subject was Tank, who belonged to the nice lady who runs Julia’s pre-school. Tank, a little older now, was a shelter rescue at about a year. She’s a Chihuahua/Corgi mix and was thought to have been abused. She’s sweet enough, but doesn’t like strange men, hats or hoods.

A little further up Greenwood, we ran into Shadow and his patient owner. Shadow is part black lab and part Giant Schnauzer.

Later, as we headed back from the post office, we passed Bailey, an enormous beast of a Golden Retriever. According to his owner, Bailey just dropped ten pounds. I’m fairly certain he meant that the dog was a on a diet as he didn’t have the tell-tale baggy with him.