Puddles was the sole sur­vivor of a lit­ter of pup­pies left in the cold of Canadian win­ter, because the own­er did­n’t want to keep them. He stayed alive by bury­ing him­self under his moth­ers body to stay warm. At a cou­ple weeks old he was tak­en to his new and per­ma­nent home, where he’s lived for over 13 years.

Puddles is cur­rent­ly suf­fer­ing from aller­gies (he’s chewed through his fur), arthri­tis, and severe dia­betes. He can’t even make it up the front steps with­out the momen­tum of a run. Once a healthy 110 pound dog, he now weighs 88lbs.

I was com­mis­sioned to take some pic­tures of him with the kids before he pass­es.

In return, I was offered din­ner; a savoury pas­ta with tiger shrimp and lemon zest, along with apple crisp for dessert. All made from scratch.

This was a small exer­cise in shoot­ing RAW (used for about half the shots). It’s great to not wor­ry about white bal­ance and to have an extra stop expo­sure adjust­ment, but I still find that get­ting the pro­cess­ing right is a bit tricky.