Kiara: Portraits of An (Almost 7 Year Old) Puppy

Kiara portrait- August 20, 2016

One of the best parts of summer is spending more time with my beautiful (seven year old) puppy, Kiara. It is incredible not to have a 60 hour a week schedule and just chill with her while I plan my new blog venture (don't worry, The Singapore Lizard isn't going anywhere; I'm just working on another project, too. Stay tuned!)

So, although Kiara would love the beach in the summer, and would probably try to jump in the waves, Barcelona is very limited in allowing dogs on the beach in the summer. I guess that's fair enough given all the tourists - but it'd be nice to have a few dedicated beaches that you can actually access by train.  I found a few online on the Costa Brava (a few hours north), but most aren't accessible unless you have a car.  There's one in Sitges called Cala Vallcarca, but apparently it's "surrounded by a cement factory", which ruins the view (according to Animalados). So, we headed to Montjuic Park on Monday instead, and finished up the photoshoot with indoor portraits last night.

So, why do I call her "puppy"? She's smart and absolutely hilarious with the child-like stunts she pulls, like dragging my IKEA kitchen trolley from the kitchen to the sofa, and helping herself to the spice bottles she thinks smell the best.  Or, helping herself to her leash and harness (which are located on a coat hanger that I can barely reach!) and hanging out with and chewing them on the sofa while I'm at work. Or, as I realized while setting up a mini strength training circuit at home before taking her for a run last Saturday, thinking that working out is THE BEST game ever.  She followed me around excitedly for every rep, and my "break" in between sets ended up being a few second game of tug-of-war with Kiara!

Kiara and the amputated moose toy

Another example is her insistence on finding and removing the squeaker in every squeaker toy. A couple days ago I bought her one that had a full squeaker ball, not just a teensy squeaker inside a moose toy. This is her face of frustration after neatly amputating the moose's leg in vain (the squeaker ball remained inside for one whole extra day before she figured it out!)

Anyway, below is the slideshow of the handful of portraits that turned out (after over 75 shots).   Please remember that if you're on a mobile device that doesn't support Flash, visit my Kiara Portraits Flickr Set Page here, click on the first photo and either flip through or press play for the slideshow. Enjoy!