Читать книгу Dogtography - Kaylee Greer - Страница 26

Believe it or not, this sweet girl does have ears. They’re just pinned so tightly back to her head that she’s made them fully invisible in this particular photo. This is a clear signal that she’s likely either anxious, uncomfortable, or afraid. It’s important to keep your attention on your furry subject’s ears throughout the course of your photo shoot, because their ears are one of the most expressive features on their body. They use them to say so much. (Which is why there’s such a debate about cropping the natural ears off of dogs for the purposes of pleasing human aesthetic preferences, as it limits their communication abilities quite a bit throughout the course of their lives.) This is a body language cue that also exists in the realm of meaning one thing in one dog, but something else entirely in another, depending on breed type and natural ear shape. For example, a dog holding his ears back might not be as noticeable a cue on, say, a Cocker Spaniel, as it would be on a German Shepherd. A German Shepherd’s prominent, pointy, upright ears and their subsequent shifting positions are an obvious feature to take note of, whereas these same movements would be much more subtle on a droopy-eared Spaniel. This means that it’s super important to pair this body language cue with the additional clues that the rest of the dog’s physical body language might be giving you. Are the dog’s ears pinned back while he’s moving slowly and quite stiffly? That’s a clear sign he’s feeling threatened or uncomfortable. Are his ears pinned back while the rest of his body language is loose, wiggly and waggy in a play bow position? More than likely this means your dog is feeling frisky and is ready to play. After some time of paying attention to dog behaviors and spending time with dogs of all breeds, shapes, sizes, and personality types, reading these cues is going to become more and more natural to you until it becomes completely second nature on a subconscious level.

1.12

FIGURE 1.12 Through her clear and precise body language signals, Lilly the Pit Bull was communicating to me how stressed and overwhelmed she felt during this portion of her photo shoot. It was a very hot summer day in Boston and in addition to the inherent stress of the shoot, the heat was also working against us. It was clear to me to stop and take a nice, long break after snapping a couple of frames of Lilly on this dock once I noticed her ears pinned so dramatically back to her head that it almost appeared as if she didn’t have any!