Hi!

I'm Mel!**

If you've found your way here, I'm guessing we have one major thing in common: dogs! Growing up I was that kid, that only child, who always had a dog. My parents named the first dog we got after I was born "Buddy" because he was meant to be a buddy for me. No, I wasn't a lonely kid, but my dog was always my best friend. Dogs have always been a member of my family, not a "pet" (I can tell stories about Buddy sitting at the kitchen table with us, but my mom would kill me!).

I've also been a photographer at heart since I was a kid and my grandfather gave me my first camera in the 4th grade.

Now, as an adult all this has lead to deciding I need to do something that means something. I want to capture images that people will love, that will stir an emotion when someone looks at it. Not everyone, but someone. Not every emotion, or a specific emotion, but an emotion. Make you feel something. What makes you feel more than those silly, goofy, (sometimes) pain in the ass, stinky, all loving four legged creatures that not only do we invite in our homes, but we allow them to take over our homes, our lives, our hearts. Dogs are everything to us. If they can’t fix a bad day, at the very least they neutralize it, at best they make us laugh and forget it. They’re comfort when we need it, they’re companions whether we need it or not (I really don’t need company in the bathroom, but there they are), and most of all, they’re silent friends (ok, maybe not always so silent). My dogs have been there through the best, and helped me through the worst. And everything I’m saying to my computer screen here, I know without a doubt, I’m not alone in feeling this. 

Tell me what your dog or dogs mean to you.

**Photo not me, clearly. Duke doesn't spell as well as I do.

***all speling mistakes are Duke's.