As soon as this topic came up, I KNEW it had to be all about my old girl who will be 13 at the beginning of September. There are so many things I want to remember about her, and she is getting, well, so, GREY. On a mostly black dog, it is QUITE noticeable. Meg'n is my snuggle bun. She was a foster "failure" from Border Collie Rescue Texas. I picked up the whole litter from a guy who had a failed ranch in East Texas almost 13 years ago. I ended up fostering 3 at one time or another. Meg'n never left. She had an intuition as to when anyone needed a snuggle. I am a firm believer one must always have a lap "border" in the house. That's her job, just keep me in lovin'  and kisses when I need them most. She came to my life at an opportune time, as I did not know how much longer I would have my 13 1/2 year old Border Collie, Princess, who filled that roll (turns out Princess lived to 15 1/2 and brought Meg'n along quite nice as her backup).

Since every other dog in my house has had a job (agility, herding etc), Meg'n never got to go on many trips in my busy show schedule. She spent most of her life happy at home. Now, it is my job to keep my senior girl happy, as she has done for me for so many years. She is having more trouble seeing and hearing (although I believe a lot of that is selective....). She does not, however, have any trouble jumping up onto her favorite chair, my bed or a lap. 

I have talked in past blogs how Meg'n is my "cheerleader". When everyone else plays, she romps around barking at them. She closes her eyes, screws up her face and makes an "O" type shape with her mouth and, BARKS. As she barks, her front feet bounce. Here is my detail of Meg's cheerlead.

She never quite got both of her ears to stand up straight. Her right ear spikes up, then just flops partially over. It has always been part of her charm.

She has always acted more like a sheep than a Border Collie in tall grass, since she would rather crop grass than chase sheep through it. In fact, this girl, when I wanted to see what she would do with sheep, just for fun, just looked at me like "Uh, and what am I supposed to do with these dirty, smelly things???".  She pranced back to me and promptly sat. From that time forward she was my "Valley Girl", even if she was not "blonde", as she was pretty useless for anything but attention. So here are some grass shots I took. When not in the sun, you begin to see her grey. The first shot shows how the grey is running down her neck onto her back! I love her grey eyebrows and how the grey us running up her muzzle and nose.

After letting her run around with her buddy Bonnie Sue Border Collie, She finally settled into the shade for some paw shots and a really close shot of her grey face. She has always had the fuzziest, white toe'd feet, and now you can see the white flecks starting to show up on her leg feathers. Of course I have been horribly remiss in keeping the fur trimmed 😊. You can really see her white brows and cloudy eyes now. I tried to find some items that had some texture for the paw shots, an old cedar bench and a river pebble sidewalk worked great.

So, this is my Meg'n. I hope I still have a few more years with her. We at BC Rescue TX think she is the last of her litter. We had Birthday parties for them at a local park for the first few years.... then we all eventually moved on. Last year I had the wonderful opportunity to do some Blue Bonnet shots with Meg'n and her sister Raven. Dagmar lost Raven during the following months, shortly after we found out her brother Aiden also passed. Earlier this year, her sister Willow passed on. Willow's Mom, Georgann is coming over tomorrow for some Meg'n time.

I love you Meg-a-roo 🐾 💕. (And yes, that IS a piece of grass hanging from her mouth after her "graze"... this is about Details after all...).

"Beautiful Beasties is a network with forums, blogs and chats for professional pet photographers, where we can get advice, share images and support each other". One such forum is the 52 Project Challenge. Each week, a new theme is chosen by a forum member, then we have a week to go out and shoot our interpretation. The themes allow us to stretch our creativity and shoot something distinctive. There is nothing better to improve our craft than to go out and practice/shoot. Results are then posted to our individual blogs and linked to one another to form a blog ring. We use blog comments or the forum to leave feedback. This is a wonderful way to get peer insight and ideas from one another. Each week, please go to the end of each blog and click on the link to the next one in the circle. You will not be disappointed.

Please follow the ring to the next member blog about "Details":  Kelly Baugh of San Francisco Bay Area CA Amyranth Pet Photography.