Tag: Brixham

A Blog For June

by Shooting The Dog, posted in Brixham, Devon, Dog Photography, Dogs, Photography, Retail

A rather late blog post, it’s June already what has happened to April and May? Well they seem to have sped past very quickly. So many apologies for not getting around to posting anything here for a long time.

May Camping Trip

Tom and Fidget camping in Wales

May saw Fidget and me off on one of our camping trips. This time to the wilds of the Brecon Beacons. We managed to get in some nice walks, and we even managed to time it right for some sunny weather.

It wasn’t one of our favourite camp sites, but the location was absolutely stunning, and the facilities and the site staff were brilliant. It was just a bit too busy with the “wrong” type of campers, and there was a rather busy road just by the campsite. But we still had a lovely break, and we are already planning our September trip.

In other news

Much work has been happening on the website. A few tweaks here and there in the background to try and optimise the site, and some changes to layout and content.

You can check out all the changes at www.shootingthedog.com

Meanwhile Fidget has been out playing with his friends and generally just being Fidget.

Best friends
The chase for the ball
A sandy shake on the beach

12th Birthday Special Offer

As our 12th business birthday is soon upon us, we have a fabulous special offer for anyone booking a studio photo shoot before the end of July.

Birthday Special Offer

And, we are getting close to completing our rebranding from Tom Horsley Photography to Shooting The Dog. Our new shop sign has now been ordered and hopefully will be with us before the end of the month.

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Beware The Ides Of March …

by Shooting The Dog, posted in Brixham, Devon, Dog Photography, Dogs, Photography, Retail

The curse of the ides of March seem to have bit me this week.

Things have been a bit manic, as my computer started doing weird things. Have had to spend most of the week trying to get them sorted out. Which meant the jobs I should have been doing have been delayed. That in turn means I’ve not been a happy boy!

After a wait for Microsoft to call me back – that never happened; I had a lovely online chat with someone who seemed to know less about what the problem was than I did. However, we agreed that something had done something and that it wasn’t working. Anyway, to cut a very long story short , I restored Windows back to a point some time in the middle of last month and by some miracle everything was working properly again. Then I just had to get all the things I had moved out the way, when trying to solve the problem, back to where they should be – I am still doing this bit.

Barney The Border Terrier
Bouncy Border Terrier
Barney

Barney came in for a portrait session at the end of last month, and was full of terrier mischief. His owners sort of knew what they wanted, but Barney wasn’t quite so sure that he wanted the same thing. A lot of fun and we got some lovely photos; so I hope his owners are happy with the results.

March Availability

We still have some gaps in March and April if you would like to book your pet in for a photo shoot. Just drop us a message here and we’ll get back to you pretty sharpish!

Remember that dogs will be banned from many of the better beaches from the start of May, so if you would like a beach shoot then April is a good time to get it done.

It’s Christmas Time ….

by Shooting The Dog, posted in Brixham, Devon, Cats, Christmas, Dog Photography, Dogs, Photography, Picture Framing, Retail

Well things are beginning to slow down now as we get to the last few days before the big event.

The final few framing jobs just need to be finished off (and collected by the customers!), and then we can relax … and go for a pre-Christmas beer.

2018 has been a busy year, with things changing slightly as we try to stay ahead of an ever changing market place. What with people worried about their finances and how the “BREXIT” effect will impact them, trying to tempt them to spend money on a luxury item is never going to be easy. Add to that a few problems with a naughty intervertebral disc and … let’s just say it has been difficult at times.

That said, we have had some wonderful customers through our doors this year, and we are already looking forward to shooting a lot more pets in 2019.
The calendar is already open, so don’t be shy about making a booking!

This year we have been looking at ways to make the mundane, paperworky (that’s my new word of the month) things easier. We have have started using FramR software for pricing the framing work, and Studio Ninja software to streamline the photography side of things. We have some minor things to iron out in both of these to fit the way we work, but we are getting there.

And so to next year ..

As with this year, the business will be moving more away from the original “Tom Horsley Photography” ideas, and much more down the “Shooting The Dog” road.

We pride ourselves on our pet portraits, we love doing them, and want to produce the best results we can for our customers.

So, next year should see some more changes to the shop; with less random “stuff” on the shelves, and more things related to the pet photography service on display. Print sales from the shop have pretty much dried up, so we’ll be moving all the landscape print sales to the web site only, and free up some more space in the shop.

Other than that, unless I come up with a cunning plan or win the lottery, we’ll continue to provide, what we hope is, quality service with everything we do, at a reasonable price (while still be able to eat occasionally!).

Thank you to everyone who has supported us this year, and we look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year.

Oh, and for those of you who have had you pet photographed with us before there might well be a very special offer for a follow-up shoot next year. I’m sure some details will be being published soon.

November News …

by Shooting The Dog, posted in Brixham, Devon, Cats, Christmas, Dog Photography, Dogs, Photography, Picture Framing, Retail

Well, November has been and gone – very quickly in my mind.

We’ve been doing lots of work on the web site this month, and The Framing Dept continues to be busy as usual.

We had two dog photography sessions last week, one with a wonderful rescue Bulldog, and the other was with two eleven month old Chihuahua x JRT brothers (it was chaos, but in a lovely way!)

Mimi The Bulldog
Buster
Buddy

Christmas will now soon be with us, so don’t forget our Christmas Gift Voucher offer, it would make the perfect Christmas gift for the pet lover in your life.

Ooh, free stuff.

by Shooting The Dog, posted in Brixham, Devon, Competition, Photography, Retail

We have 5 of Tom’s “Rocks, Waves, and Beaches” Brixham 2018 calendars to give away – for free!
Cover_2018
All you need to do to enter is sign up for our mailing list, and you can do that here:

http://eepurl.com/dk9l6T

If you then want to never hear from us again, you can unsubscribe at anytime, though why you would want to do that is beyond me. After all as well as our newsletter, you will get the odd advert for what we do, as well as exclusive special offers and competitions – and you wouldn’t want to miss out on that, would you?

Weekends To Forget …

by Shooting The Dog, posted in Brixham, Devon, Dog Photography, Dogs, Photography, Retail

Last weekend was definitely one of those.

As some of you will know, my little dog, Fidget, suffers from idiopathic epilepsy; and despite having very few seizures last year made up for last weekend. Starting at 5.45 am on Saturday, he had about 14 seizures; the last at 8.30 am on Sunday morning.

He was taken to the vets and kept in all day for observation, and of course he didn’t have another fit all the time he was there!

They carried out various blood tests on site and everything came back fine. More blood was sent of to the lab for testing, and this has now come back showing that we are in the therapeutic range on all his drugs, though one was slightly on the low side, so we have upped his dosage slightly on that one.

fidget1

It was amazing how much I missed tripping over him and being nagged to play games, and all the little things that I complain about when he’s there – he really has taken over my life, and when he is not there it’s like a little bit of me has gone.

Anyway, he was back home on Sunday evening and we are all none the wiser as to what suddenly caused this “blip”.

fidget2

 

By Monday he was back to his normal rambunctious self, and charging about chasing balls and rolling in the mud, as if nothing had happened.

Me, I’m just happy to have him home with me, where he belongs, and hoping that we won’t have another episode like that again. Now I just need to try and earn some money so I can pay the emergency vet bill!

If you wish to find out more about Canine Epilepsy then here would be a good place to start:
www.canine-epilepsy.com

 

My heart goes out to anyone who owns (or has owned) a dog that suffers from this, it is a really horrible thing to see, and to know that basically you just have to wait until it is over as there is nothing you can do.

Last weekend was definitely one I want to forget.