My friend Melissa is practically perfect in every way. She is good at everything she does and knows a lot of things about a lot of subjects. And not in an exasperating kind of way, but in the you’re lucky-to-have-her-as-a-friend kind of way. Hosting your in-laws for dinner and need a recipe? Melissa will give you a stack that are impressive, yet easy to make, and will come over to help you prep. Planning a European vacation and need hotel advice? Melissa will send you a detailed list of the most cost effective hotels within walking distance of major attractions, and map out the surrounding subway stops. Wondering if you are too old to wear the combat boots you just purchased? Melissa will provide you with the names of similarly aged celebrities that are sporting the same boots and assure you that you are totally young and cool enough. The girl is awesome. She’s like having my own personal Wikipedia, who also lets me borrow her clothes and makes me dinner. So you can imagine my complete and utter shock when Melissa called me up asking for advice for training her new puppy….yes, the girl who knows everything was asking me, the girl who called her vet in tears claiming her puppy was possessed when he merely wanted to play, for help. I (and pretty much everyone that knows me) hardly think I’m qualified to give anyone advice on such a subject, but, apparently, owning a puppy and puppy training are the one thing that I seem to have a slightly deeper knowledge about than Melissa. And after all she has done for me, I am thrilled to be able to give her the little bit I know about puppy rearing.

Lesson #1: Grab that adorable little puppy and your beautiful babies and let me take lots of pretty pictures of them. (You’ll recognize these faces from our spring shoot here.)

Here are Owen and Gus!


And Clare and Gus!

Good God, this girl is gorgeous.


Ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog!











And then we went on an adventure…


These are their “I don’t want the adventure to end” faces. Pretty good.

Love you guys!!

Lesson #2: Melissa…I know you are probably sitting on your couch right now with Gus on your lap reading this blog…if you don’t want a 90 pound lapdog, tell Gus to get off right this second!