German Shepherds · Volume One, page 101
Alfie and Saffi, the rescue from Sydney's streets and the girl who swims in the dam
Some dogs come to a photo session ready to perform. Others need someone to slow everything down. Deb's family noticed which kind of session theirs was:
Simon was so natural with our dogs, and his calm approach got the best out of them.
Two very different shepherds
Their page in German Shepherds of Australia, Volume One introduces them one at a time.
Alfie came first, and the hard way. He was a stray on the streets of Sydney, and the family adopted him "from a difficult situation" seven years before the book was made. By the time of the book he was eleven, and his family call him "the most gentle and sensitive shepherd we've ever known".
Saffi arrived as a puppy, a working-line shepherd, five when the book was made: quick to learn, mad about balls, and happiest on the family's rural block, "swimming in the dam or following a scent trail".
A perfect pair
Put them together and the page explains why it works:
While Saffi is the more energetic and intense of the two, Alfie's calm presence and endless patience help balance their relationship.
The family even joke that Alfie is their therapy dog, because his soulful eyes calm anyone who meets him.
Why calm works with shepherds
German Shepherds read the people around them closely. A rushed, noisy session makes a shepherd watchful, and a watchful shepherd looks tense in a photograph. A slow, quiet one lets the dog settle, and a settled shepherd looks like the dog the family knows at home. Look at the portrait at the top of this page: two dogs in the long grass, both looking straight down the lens, neither of them in a hurry.
On the wall
Deb's note ends where every good session should:
I'm really glad we went ahead with this as we now have beautiful memories hanging on our wall.
Earlier in the same note she is plainer still: "We are absolutely blown away by the beautiful photographs Simon created for us."
More shepherds, more families
German Shepherds of Australia, Volume One holds more than 200 German Shepherds, each with a portrait and a few lines from the family who knows them best. Meet Gordon and Daisy, and Kai.