Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

What’s Yours Is Mine

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A few weeks back we had quite a discussion about using photos from the internet as well as from fellow bloggers.

I’ll be the first one to tell you that I don’t make the extra effort to protect my photos with a copyright mark.  I have a copyright caveat at the bottom of the blog and that’s as far as it goes.

This isn’t a hugely popular blog with tens of thousands of readers so I don’t worry too much about someone stealing my work.

Besides, how easy is it to take a photo and cut a copyright out?

20120108-freighter-1 No, this isn’t Delilah, this is Freighter from the 2 Brown Dawgs blog. The blog information was in the grass just below Freighter’s feet.  I cut it out.  (This photo was used with permission from 2 Brown Dawgs.)

The whole copyright issue dawned on me this past Follow-Up Friday when Beth said, “So if I understand, what you did was just add the copyright line in text on the photo? I get that…in fact, I’ve figured out how to do it with Pixlr, which i think is similar to PicMonkey…So I should just add text to any photos I post on the blog and that will deter unauthorized borrowing.”

Except that I’ve just shown you how easy that is to get around, right?

I think what you need to do to protect your photos, is to add a watermark to it.

Dictionary.com defines watermark as “A figure or design impressed in some paper during manufacture, visible when the paper is held to the light.”

The obvious solution is to add your text to your photo in a place where it can’t be cropped out.

S9 Copyright Nobody would want to gank this photo, would they?  But it does take the cuteness factor down.

Copyright S9 If we manipulate the text, we can add it, but make it so faint, it’s hardly discernible.  Can you see the mark? Hint: it’s right across the top of Sampson’s head, between his ears.  (I could probably have gone a bit darker.)

Now the question becomes, is it really necessary to take this type of precaution with our photos?

And to go a step farther, what about our words?

During that discussion many weeks back the term “Creative Commons” was mentioned by Lexy from Gone For a Walk and Pamela at Something Wagging This Way Comes.

If you don’t know what Creative Commons is, quite simply it’s your permission for how others can use your work.  I took some time yesterday and added a Creative Commons button to my side-bar.

My Creative Commons says any of my photos or words can be used Non-Commercially as long as you give me credit.

Is it too easy?  Or am I too trusting?  What types of precautions do you take with your precious work?

 

The Path Less Taken

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When we got up yesterday morning it was snowing.

Again!

A slow, lazy snow that drifted down and covered shoveled paths with a light layer.   We didn’t care, it was Saturday and we wanted our walk.

With eager hearts we set out for our park.  I had scoped it out a few days ago and could tell that people had been going in.

They got in fine and boy were they fast, they were out of sight before I even got a foot in. I wanted to document the entire trip, but I figured you’d get tired of my panting and the sound of my ski pants rubbing together.

I opted for my favorite trail. As it turned out, it was the path less taken by others, but we forged our own trail.

I took a couple of videos only because it was so funny watching the dogs hopping through the snow.

There is something so majestically beautiful about the woods all covered in snow.

It was a peaceful walk, with lots of time for quiet reflection.  Just what I needed to get my creative juices flowing again.

To have a heart like a dog, you can’t be afraid to blaze your own trail.  Sometimes the path less traveled is exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

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Like most households with dogs, there are certain words you just can’t say.  Of course the same holds true for households with children or grandchildren but generally they’re not the same words.

Depending on your dog and your lifestyle they may deviate slightly from other dog households but generally there are some words you just can’t say around your dogs.

In our house, they are words like hike,walk, and ride to name a few.  These are generally referred to as H-I-K-E, W-A-L-K, R-I-D-E, (as we spell words in order to communicate with each other, without alerting the dogs to what we are thinking

In Delilah’s case, we need to spell out things such as D-I-N-N-E-R, B-R-E-A-K-F-A-S-T and any other food related word.

Sampson is so smart and picks up so many words that we’ve taken our code to a new level.

W-A-L-K has now become W – shortened to DUB.

The other night I looked at Sampson and said, Do you want to take a dub?

And Hubby said, “Oh sure, go ahead and teach him that, so we can’t say that either.”

Good point Hubby.

Last night Sampson and Delilah were wrestling.  They’re loud when they wrestle.  Well actually Sampson is the vocal one, Delilah is very quiet.  It’s always the quiet ones you have to look out for, isn’t it?

Anyway, the TV is on, the dogs are wrestling like it’s their job and I said to Hubby, Do you want to dub?

All activity stopped and Sampson’s ears perked right up.

  IMG_4076 Sort of like that, but he cocked his head to one side.

Hubby and I looked at each other and laughed.

It didn’t take him long to learn that.

What kinds of words do your dogs pick up on?  Do you have any code words you use to help you communicate with each other, so the dog doesn’t know?

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