Tiny Ptera and Medium Koira

I've heard more than once that the size of my dogs surprises people in real life. When we went to BlogPaws and met people who have read our blog, Koira was always smaller than they thought she would be. Pallo was always bigger than they thought he would be.

Posing in the lavender 

Well, I can tell you for sure, Ptera is smaller than you think she is. Every time my neighbor sees her, he says "It's like a dog, but tiny," which is pretty much exactly right. Ptera is 10.5 lbs and measures at 13.5" tall at the shoulder.

Koira posing in the exact same spot that Ptera is in, above.

Koira is a solid medium sized dog by most standards. She stands 19" tall at the shoulder and weighs in at or around 40 lbs. She is heavy for her height because of her muscular build, which I think is part of what throws people off about her.

Ptera and Koira's first official posed picture together. Koira isn't a very big dog, and Ptera really is that tiny.

All this is to say, if I thought it was challenging to get good pictures of Pallo and Koira together because of their differences in height, I don't know why I thought it would be any different with Ptera. Pictures are much easier if both of the subjects' faces are close together in terms of distance from the camera- and when one of my dogs can literally walk underneath the other, their faces are never going to be in the same place! So if you've been wondering why there are no pictures of Ptera and Koira posing together, this is one major reason for that. The other major reason being that I am still in the process of teaching Ptera how to do stand stays and sit stays and pose for the camera, and it is easier to work with her alone than to have both dogs doing it at the same time.

Three kinds of lavender- one behind her, one beside her, and one in front of her

Koira is a pro poser, and she should be after this many years. She has her times when she doesn't want to do it, and refuses to put up her ears. And sometimes she manages to just look sad even with her ears up. Some places are no-goes for posing with her too, due to her phobia of traffic noises (though she is getting better with it!).

Ptera is in the same location that Koira is in above. So tiny.

Ptera so far is fearless, but sensitive. Noises and movement and things don't phase her. Being addressed in a harsh tone can flatten her, though, and being reset for a broken stay tends to make her Dobby ears come out- where instead of nice forward tipped Jack Russell ears, her ears kind of flop half open out to the side, even if the reset is done in an upbeat way with no words of disappointment. Thankfully, she is quick to recover, and while she is sensitive, she is naturally a quick and inquisitive dog.

And I am finding out that there are shots you can get, like being totally embedded in the lavender, with a tiny dog that you have no chance of getting with a medium or large dog. But on the other side of the same coin, there are shots where a tiny dog gets totally lost, such as posing with larger things like statues, tall flowers, etc. If the flowers are above her head, it is like she is just getting her picture with a bunch of green stems! There are so many things to get used to about having a tiny dog for the first time, and adjusting my photography to work with her is just one of them.