Victory | biscuit's space | The blog of photographer Katherine Carver

Feb 6

Collage: Biscuit and Victory

“Eventually I discovered for myself the utterly simple prescription for creativity: Be intensely yourself. Don’t try to be outstanding; don’t try to be a success; don’t try to do pictures for others to look at – just please yourself.” ~Ralph Steiner

Below is a small photo collage of our fur babies, Biscuit and Victory! I am so grateful that I consistently photographed Biscuit and continue to photograph Victory,both my muse. It is really nice to flip through our photo albums and our digital images. We are so grateful for Biscuit and Victory — they make life so much sweeter!

Happy Thursday!

Feb 4

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Victory: Photography Project — Part 4

“You can always find hope in a dog’s eyes.” ~Unknown

I have recently begun a weekly photography project with my muse, Victory! I will continue to share this project on the blog! I have also been documenting Victory’s milestones so to speak each month — you can read these here! I think that it is fun to document all of Victory’s changes, while preserving fleeting moments and memories.

Victory loves being in our bed and she loves to sit with us and eat her dinner on the sofa! The third place that Victory loves to be in our house is in her ‘hut!’ When we adopted Victory in October 2013, she was used to having access to her crate, her safe place. Thus, Doug and I purchased a fabric type crate, her ‘hut,’ and she loves it! Even a few friends we know have seen Victory’s ‘hut’ and decided to get one for their furry family members — Victory is such a trend setter!

Victory is spending less time in her ‘hut.’ She does, however, like having her own “safe place” in the house, in her ‘hut.’ The front is always unzipped and open so she can come and go as she pleases. Also, the top of her crate is unzipped and open — her sun roof! We put Biscuit’s Eco Nap Mat at the bottom of her ‘hut’ for comfort along with a few blankets, including the light blue blanket from Victory’s foster Mom. We also keep her water dish and a few of her toys, including shoe laces in her ‘hut!’ I wash her blankets that say in her ‘hut’ weekly!

So, it seemed fitting to capture a few photographs documenting this time that Victory likes to spend in her little ‘hut!’ She loves to nap and lay down in her ‘hut!’ In time, we are sure that she will not need her ‘hut’ as much! Victory is also getting used to my camera and she is just as patient as our beloved Biscuit. Enjoy!

Happy Tuesday!

Jan 27

Victory: Photography Project — Part 3

“Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, filling an emptiness we don’t even know we have.” ~Thom Jones

I have recently begun a weekly photography project with my muse, Victory! I will continue to share this project on the blog! I have also been documenting Victory’s milestones so to speak each month — you can read these here! I think that it is fun to document all of Victory’s changes, while preserving fleeting moments and memories.

Since Victory loves being in our bed so much, I captured a few images of her getting ready to take a nap! She loves to be between the pillows up against the headboard! Each night, she takes turns on each of our pillows during the night! Victory looks very beautiful and she got a bath recently and she is looking fluffy and clean! Victory’s sheltie furs are really starting to come in — her coat is going to be gorgeous! She is our little golden rod!

Happy Monday!

Jan 22

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Victory: Photography Project — Part 2

“If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.” ~Will Rogers

I have recently begun a weekly photography project with my muse, Victory! I will share this project on the blog! I have also been documenting Victory’s milestones so to speak each month — you can read these here, here, and here! I think that it is fun to document all of Victory’s changes, while preserving fleeting moments and memories.

The images shown below were taken this past weekend, before the snow. These images remind me of these images of our little Biscuit. Victory looks gorgeous! I especially like the one where she squinted her little eyes shut!

Happy Wednesday!

Jan 21

Victory: Snow Day!

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” ~John Steinbeck

Today we have been enjoying a snow day with our little Victory! We are glad to be home in this weather. The snow is coming down in all directions attempting to blot out the neighborhood colors. Isn’t it amazing how the snow blankets the other noise in your life and you become grateful to be tucked in and witness winter’s beauty?

We put Victory’s pink coat on her and we took her outside for her afternoon walk. As you can see in the images below, the snow is really coming down here! Little Victory was a little trooper in the snow! Here is a link to Victory’s first snow! After her walk in the snow, Victory took a long nap with her Daddy!

Today is also special because it is the 500th post on the blog!

Happy Tuesday!

Jan 17

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Victory: Tuck In Ritual

Do you have a “tuck in ritual” before bed with your furry family member? We have a nightly routine and “tuck in ritual” with little Victory each night. When we come home from the gym after dinner during the week, we play with Victory and watch a little TV with her — She is a Sons of Anarchy fan! I think Doug wants to get little Victory a cut — but I think Victory is much more sophisticated! Then, we take Victory for her nightly walk around the neighborhood. She always gets a little treat after each walk as positive reinforcement for doing a good job on her walk!

Then, we head up to bed, and then little Victory comes up the stairs behind us and she literally runs and hops into bed squarely between the pillows and our headboard waiting for us to come to bed. (On the weekends when we are able to stay up later, sometimes, Victory heads up the stairs on her own and puts herself to bed!) Once in bed, we then give Victory a bowl of water in the hopes that she will not wake us up for a “midnight drink of water!” However, around 2:00 a.m., recently without fail, Victory runs up and down the middle of the bed waking us up for a drink! Usually Doug gets up and gets her fresh water! We are working on Victory getting out of the bed to get her water on her own!

Additionally, instead of Victory immediately settling down and going to sleep between one of our heads and our headboard, as Victory had been doing since we adopted her, Victory has recently been quite active at night. She keeps us up most nights for an hour or so wanting to play! We think this is a good sign that she is getting more comfortable with us and her new home! However, both of us, including Victory, are pretty tired in the mornings! However, unlike us, Victory has the luxury of sleeping all day! Victory does let us sleep in on the weekends, which is really nice! We do think that Victory enjoys the predictability of our night-time ritual.

We had a somewhat similar night-time ritual with our beloved Biscuit — except he slept on his Orvis bed next to my side of the bed and he usually only woke us up if he had a potty emergency! Sometimes on the weekends, Biscuit would join us in bed so that we could sleep in a little longer!

The ordinary moments are the moments I most savor.

Happy Friday!

Jan 13

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Victory: Photography Project – Part 1

“Happiness is a warm puppy.” ~Charles Shultz

In addition to my long-term dog photography project, I have decided to photograph our little Victory on a weekly basis, if not more! I will share these weekly photographs of Victory here on the blog! I have also been documenting Victory’s milestones so to speak each month — you can read these here, here, and here! I want to document her story and chronicle how Victory changes, since she is, after all, still a puppy (and my muse)! I think that this will be fun to literally see the changes and how Victory develops over this year!

We had gorgeous weather yesterday! Victory was looking mighty pretty during her long walk yesterday!

Happy Monday!

Jan 10

Victory: Three Months In

“All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. For after all, he was only human. He wasn’t a dog.” ~Charles Schulz

This Sunday, January 12, 2014, marks three months since we adopted our little Victory! Victory had a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year!

Below are some things that we learned about Victory this month:

She loves to chew. Each morning, we wake up to our pillow cases having more holes and teeth marks! Luckily, I purchased some inexpensive pillow cases and a back up of our nice sheets and pillow cases! We also purchased some chew toys and shoe laces, which she loves — it is just teaching her the difference between what she can and cannot chew!
She travels well. Victory did really well in the car during our holiday travels. She sat on my lap in the car during the duration of our trip!
She is still very quite. Victory has not ‘talked’ to us yet — she has not yet barked or made any vocal noises. We hope that, in time, this will change.
She is spending more time on the floor in our home instead of being on furniture or in her crate, which we have coined her ‘hut!’ (Victory’s crate is always open for her to go in and out of as she wishes — she likes having her ‘safe place.’)
She still prefers not to share the sidewalk with any other pedestrians! We are not sure how much time Victory spent outside while she lived in the horrendous hording situation. We are going to start training very shortly to help us!
She still likes to wake us up during the night to have a drink of water. We are working on teaching Victory where her water bowl is located a short distance away in the bathroom attached to our bedroom!
She still loves to cuddle and give us loads of kisses!
She is beginning to blossom — her fur coat is coming in more each day!
Finally, we learned that Victory might have a sister or cousin — Chrissy, who has been adopted — you can see the resemblance in their size and coloring. Chrissy also came from the same horrendous hording situation that Victory also experienced.

We love our little beautiful Victory and look forward to the spring and warmer temperatures to go on some outings together!

Enjoy the images of Victory, shown below, taken just before the really cold temperatures hit our area — she looks absolutely beautiful!

Happy Friday!

Jan 1

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Victory: Happy New Year – 2014!

Happy New Year! Victory arrived back home to celebrate New Year’s! Victory rang in the new year with some prime rib, shown below! Victory seems to love meat and she loves to eat on the sofa! (Soon, we hope to have Victory eating on her new custom mat from Orvis!)

2013 was filled with tremendous change for us. However, Doug and I look forward to 2014. We have some exciting trips planned this year with our little Victory! She is making progress each day and she did really well with her Holiday travels! We are blessed with little Victory and we know that Biscuit is forever in our hearts.

Thank you for reading the blog and for your support — it means so much! We hope that you have a wonderful New Year’s! Stay tuned for more photography; and this blog will continue to chronicle our adventures with little Victory!

Happy New Year!

Dec 27

Victory: Illuminated

Victory has been having a great Pawliday! On our drive to see family, the idea came to me that it would be fun to wrap Victory in white lights and photograph her. Victory is so tolerant and she indulges me with my ideas — she is my muse! Since we are out-of-town, Doug was kind enough to purchase a strand of 100 white lights to wrap around our beloved Victory! It was quite a comical process, but Victory cooperated as always! Victory sat atop her Grandma’s sofa in the living room while I photographed away! Victory hopped off the sofa when she was done, but she gave me a good ten minutes to photograph her! Shown below is an illuminated Victory! Perhaps this is the first of many experiments to come!

Happy Friday!