Friday Fix (8/29/2013) - Alumni Reunion and Walk

By Christy Hess

It is ALMOST time!!!! Our Alumni Reunion and Tails Trails Run/Walk is just around the corner (September 21st!). I am so excited!!!! Many of you have already pre-registered, but if you haven't, please click on the hyperlinks above to get to the registration forms.

The Tails Trails Run/Walk is a fundraiser just an hour before the reunion. It will be a beautiful walk around the lake at Clement Park and EVERYONE is welcome to join us, we would just really appreciate it if you can pre-register so we know you are coming.

Photo Site

At the same time I am happy to let everyone know that our photo site is up and running. To give a little background, we get a few emails a week from adopters asking if we can send them puppy photos. Of course I love puppy photos and have no problem sharing them, but thought that it would be great for the rescue if:

1. I could make them all available so people wouldn't have to send an email to get them.
2. Have them posted so everyone sees how adorable our puppies are.
3. Have all photos including alumni photos on one site.
4. Raise a little money to help the rescue bring in future adorable puppies.

So photos have now moved to coloradopuppyrescue.zenfolio.com. Check out:

1. Alumni Photo Album
2. Before and After Album
3. Mystery Mix Album - hoping everyone guesses on breeds for this one
4. CPR Videos
5. Puppy Photos and Videos for 2012 (downloads available for donation)
6. Puppy Photos and Videos for 2013 (downloads available for donation)
7. More to come (ie: Reunion Album)

If you have a puppy from a previous year and would like to get your puppy photos for a small donation, please email me at funds@coloradopuppy.org.

So we are talking thousands of photos, how do I find my puppy's picture? Each of the photos are named with the year and puppy number. So for now if you are looking for photos for puppy 546 in 2013 type 130546 in the search bar:

Soon I will be making it so the puppy number will be all you need. If you have problems finding a photo - feel free to email me.

Please let me know if you have any question or suggestions!!!! Would you like a blooper album?

Have a great long weekend. I know what I will be doing - working on updating the alum and before and after albums!!!!!!

Friday Fix (8/23/2013) - Indoor Photos

By Christy Hess

Don't know if you heard or not but we got in 70+ puppies this week. PHEW!

Well, I tried to be prepared knowing that it would be a long night of photos, so I got a new flash. As I have said in previous posts, I am a beginner photographer, so I got the best flash on the market for my camera, thinking it would just be perfect.

And it probably will be, but on a night with 70+ puppies, it is NO time to try out new technology that you know nothing about. Lesson learned. I will be spending the next couple of weeks trying to perfect indoor and evening photos with my new flash. If only I could find a dummies book for it.

Thanks to Brittany and Regina for snapping over 1000 photos of our puppies. Thank you also to Emily and Andrea for wrangling our puppies for the photos. Great job!!!

Here is a cute little flipbook for you:

Just have to say "awwwwww". 

And my favorite blooper of the night:

Hope you have a great weekend. Think of my poor dogs having to endure the torture of me learning to use a new flash because they are the only ones that allow me to take photos of them.

Friday Fix (8/9/2013) - Help!

By Christy Hess

The last few months we have been busy at Colorado Puppy Rescue (in a great way). Every other week we have a longer/bigger intake that starts later in the evening. This week we found out that we definitely need more than one photographer at an event. I was the bottleneck. But my wrangler hung in there for me and we ended up with some great photos!

48 pups + 630 photos + 3 hours + 3 hours cropping photos for website = 1 late night

We had the Sears Portrait studio for puppies going this week, because as we started pictures, the sky opened up and it started pouring rain. The great thing - the puppies are so darn cute this week that they will have no problem finding homes.

There were some bloopers though - enjoy.

Not looking!

Not looking!

Not Looking - see a pattern here?

Might have overdone it with the props on this one - my fault.

Needed to stretch his legs during the photo shoot

Fetch please!

What's happening over there?

What's happening over there?

Gottal love a shar pei shake

...and the other way.

Work it! The camera loves you!

How's this for a picture for the website.

Looks like the same dog as above - but they were two different dogs, just the same pose.

Watch out, if you don't pose for a picture I am going to make you pose in this bucket

Have a great weekend.

Friday Fix (8/2/2013) - The Bar is Set

By Christy Hess

We have been watching many rescues and shelters who are taking the time to really capture great photos of puppies to be published on the web to draw adopters in. CPR fosters and photographers have worked very hard at capturing photos of the puppy face and body to give the potential adopters and idea of size and coloring.

The problem is...people fall in love with the puppy they see in the photo and want to adopt that puppy just based on what they see on the web. Photos along with the guess on the breed are used to spark interest in the puppy but how in the world can someone know by those two factors that the puppy is the only one for them!

Take this last week for example. We got 19 dogs from a hoarder. They were all white dogs and seemed to all be a mix of white german shepherd/yellow labrador/golden retriever mixes. Some were fluffy, some were smooth coat, but they were all about the same size and coloring. We tried to get photos of them in different settings, just so potential adopters could identify which puppy they wanted to meet first. However, we had people who only wanted to look at a single puppy from that litter and wouldn't consider meeting any other pup. To me, they missed out on a great group of puppies.

Photos and breed guesses are important advertising tools - and we will continue to strive for the best possible puppy photos, and the best breed guess, but we want everyone to come to the event with an open mind. Yes we want to know what pups sparked your interest, but if that one has already been adopted, look at the other wonderful choices to make sure that perfect puppy is not still waiting to meet you.

I brought my family to CPR to adopt a female border collie puppy. I knew I wanted a female and I like the border collie energy and intelligence. Waiting for them to get the tiny border collie puppy out for a visit, another pup (a little older) caught my eye. Female and high energy - she was the one for me. I could not have asked for a better addition to our family and though she is not a border collie - she is my mixed breed rescue that I love with all of my heart.

Hope you have a great weekend - make sure you check out the puppies we have available this week!