While I was down in the city, I took the dogs for a couple of walks to a leash-free area, and we met up with a dozen or so other dogs each time. 

One of these dogs was a beautiful, squiggly pup called Amber; she's a little bit older and a bit bigger than lovely little Ralph whom I photographed yesterday. 

When I take the dogs out, I have a camera or cameras with me 90% of the time. To this end, I carry a mini-backpack into which I have managed to develop a system for artfully cramming my big D4 camera body (the one that went for a swim earlier this summer) with an equally big 70-200mm f2.8 lens, which got called back into service after my 28-300mm (much smaller and lighter) lens went on the DL after having joined the camera for a swim and not fared quite so well. The 70-200mm is a superb quality lens, but I'd dropped it more than a few times a few years ago when I was actively using it, and its got a bit of an annoying judder when it focusses. So it's been living in a camera bag almost full-time ever since. However, to say I am pleased with its performance and accuracy is an understatement. Perhaps the camera swim was an opportune occurrence in the sense that it forced me to get this old lens back out and use it. 

Back to Amber. We crossed paths with the pup and her human, who were headed in the opposite direction. The dogs all greeted one another, as did the humans, and then I mustered some courage and asked Can I photograph your dog? The lady said yes, and all of a sudden the tiny backpack opened up and out came this enormous camera and lens. I popped off a few shots without any fussing or arranging at all, and hoped for the best. I even remembered that I had business cards in the front pouch of the backpack, and gave the lady one so that she could see the pictures. Look at me, all professional and everything…maybe there's hope for me yet.

I'm also including a few others from the play dates at the leash-free park.

Another on-the-fly one, this time of a Bernese Mountain Dog down in the river valley:

Taylor plays frogger:

And some more of Girls just wanna have fun: