The post about the Calendar...

The Calendar is tradition. It is beautiful and adorable and the hearts desire of every puppy-raiser. I'm glad this year was officially a contest, but it was hard.

They are all just so darn cute.

We eliminated the pictures that were just odd. Like the one of a gangly teenage dog not in cape, sleeping it it's crate facing away from the camera. There weren't many of these. fortunately...unfortunately... (they amused us).

Then we cropped what was left. That eliminated about 40%...square proportions ruin some photos.

Then we eliminated anything that looked remotely blurry. Out go another 10%.

Then I lamented. We still had about 200 pictures for 13 spots.

The voting began. Each person voted for their favorite 3 in each category: Black Labs, Yellow Labs, Chocolate Labs, Goldens, Hearing Dogs, Group Shots. It took a week. People wrote cheeky comments on some of them like "I am sleepy" or "save me from this photographer!".

The staff were all expected to vote each day. No one knew who the dogs were or who the photographers were. Except for some of the obvious ones...like York and Toby. When you're one of a kind it's hard to hide. People liked to guess. Mostly they were wrong, it amused me when they voted for a picture that they thought was their "favorite dog" and it was not them.

Then my work began, trying to make 24 photos into 13...and then I decided I couldn't do it.

So we also got 4 beautiful new notecards.

THANK YOU to every person who made the job of choosing SOOOO difficult! The photos were simply beautiful, and the puppies made us proud.

So here it is folks...the 2010 PADS Puppies-in-Training Calendar:

http://www.gifttool.com/shop/ShopProductDetails?ID=1580&VER=1&LNG=EN&PID=37023&DID=969

You can pre-order yours now!!