Day 201: No Black Friday store shopping for our household. We've been lazying around all day, playing board games, and plucking away at work tasks. Nico and I enjoyed running around the yard together for a bit. He loves being chased and chasing. I'm sure he wonders why I am so incapable of keeping up with him. Haha.

Day 202: Nico has incredible jumping skills. Over the last few days, I've been working on teaching him to jump for a bumper. He sort of gets it, but this outcome isn't too uncommon. He ends up jumping into me, my arm, or using me as a springboard. A lot of these are from a sitting position. I'm trying to teach him to run and jump. When successful he can get his entire body level with my shoulders. Unfortunately, he doesn't stay interested in all of this for too long. If he were more frisbee or ball motivated I think we could teach him some cool tricks.

Day 203: Shelly, Nico, and I took a walk down to Trombley Landing on the Raquette River this afternoon. It is a beautiful walk through the woods. Nico had a blast running around the entire time. If there was a way to bottle puppy energy it would outsell Red Bull.

Day 204: Nico is a crazy man during the day but if Shelly or I are on the couch then full snuggle mode is turned on. He must have his head resting on us, often he will nuzzle his face in our arms or behind our backs. Under no circumstance does he sit on the couch with one of us and isn’t snuggling. As the evening wears on he turns into a sack of potatoes. We can pick him up, slide him, or roll him and as long as he ends up next to one of us he’ll barely wake up. This is his super power, it redeems him of any trouble he may have created earlier in the day.

Day 205: Whenever Nico goes outside he does two things right away. First, he bolts around a small privacy fence at full speed in hopes of chasing off any squirrels that are under our bird feeders. Second, he loops around to our garden to check to see if our neighbor's dog is in their backyard.

Day 206: What is the deal with dogs and sticks? If anyone has a scientifically defensible explanation I would love to know.

Day 207: Nico keeping an eye on the neighborhood.

Day 208: Nico loves to run circles around me, preferably with a stick or toy in his mouth. I don't mind, it's a great way to get out some of that puppy energy without me having to do too much work. Haha.

Day 209: Nico joined us as we searched out and cut our own Christmas tree. Shelly was happy to pose with the saw and take credit for the cut. I’ll let you guess who was laying in the snow doing the actual cutting... Nico had fun sniffing around, was totally useless in tree selection, but did promptly decide the bottom branches of the freshly cut tree needed some pruning.

Day 210: Nico doesn't appear to be too phased by the cold. It's in the teens here in Saranac Lake and he was more than happy to spend lots of time outside playing. I'm expecting him to be a riot when the snow starts to really accumulate. He loves to bound and hop, it should be fun watching him do that through the snow.

Day 211: We’ve been working with Nico on being more chill when he sees cars, people, and dogs during our walks. This is mainly by training him to focus on us by rewarding him with beef bits whenever he makes eye contact with us on our walks. One funny side effect of this is he just stares at us most of the time while we are walking now. Haha. We’ve made good progress on his excitement over vehicles. He is getting a little better when people come nearby, but is still apt to pull and whine. We have a lot more work to do with dogs. One downside of the pandemic is he didn’t have a lot of opportunity when he was little to be around people and dogs other than when we would see friends for play-dates. Now he thinks every interaction with a person or dog is playtime and when he is restrained from doing that he protests like a spoiled child. We are making progress, slowly but surely.

Day 212: If Nico had thumbs we would all be in a lot of trouble. Notice how Nico is gripping the ball. I'm just waiting for the day that he stands up with it between his front paws while walking on his bag legs.

Day 213: Early morning run around the yard with his rugby ball. Nico always gets some yard laps in after we finish our morning walk.

Day 214: This is Nico saying, "play with me Dad!" He frequently jumps at me with a playful growl. While this can be very cute, we are trying our best to discourage this behavior as it is not appropriate with guests, friends, or children.

Day 215: Nico is practicing being a pointer by pointing at a tractor driving down the road behind our building at Paul Smith's College. He is getting pretty good at being an office dog. We just need to work on slightly less enthusiastic greetings of co-workers that may not be as excited about seeing him as he is seeing them.

Day 216: This photo pretty much sums up a portion of each weekend around our house. Nico and I playing in the yard while Shelly does yard chores, including burning sticks. I try to argue that playing with Nico is an important daily chore, Shelly doesn't buy it though.

Day 217: Action shots are the most challenging to capture when photographing dogs. Nico's color and markings are particularly challenging for cameras. Typically, the autofocus systems want to grab onto the black-white contrast of his chest, when I want the focus to be on his eyes. There are ways of getting around this but they are challenging when working with a dog the doesn't stop moving. I recently parted ways with my Nikon Z7 because the autofocus was horrendous at tracking fast-moving subjects. For landscape work that camera is amazing, but for wildlife or dogs, it was nothing but frustration. After more than a decade of working with Nikon cameras, I've decided to sell all of my gear and make the switch to Sony. Hopefully, you'll see more and better action shots in the coming weeks. You can support my work and this page by joining Patreon >> Patreon.com/BrendanWiltse

Day 218: Those eyes,😍.

Day 219: Nico is wishing for all the dog toys to show up under the Christmas tree.

Day 220: I look forward to longer hours of daylight. The window of opportunity to capture natural light photos of Nico is about 20 minutes each morning before I head off to work. Longer days and snow should make for more interesting photographs.

Day 221: Nico loves running through the woods during our lunchtime walks at Paul Smith's College Adirondack Watershed Institute. He put in an 11-hour day at the office today with no complaints. I made sure he got in a good 45-minute romp through the woods and snow in the middle of the day to tucker him out.

Day 222: Nico is like a pogo stick when playing in the yard, constantly bouncing and pouncing around.

Day 223: When you’re done chewing the underside of the couch cover sometimes you just need to shove your face in some pillows to take a nap.

Day 224: It's a lot of fun watching Nico deftly maneuver through the forest at full speed. He frequently puts his jumping skills to good use. Here he is several feet off the ground, almost as if he is showing off as he jumps over a small shrub with plenty of clearance.

Day 225: This evening I received my new Sony camera, which will likely result in me selling all of my Nikon gear. I'm sure to Nico it looks the same as the camera and lens that has been pointing at his face for the past 224 days. I am hopeful that it will allow me to capture even more action photos and sharper images of this fast-moving little dude.

Day 226: Nico appears to be synchronizing his ears and front legs. He came to work with me today so we could get a lunchtime walk in to put the new camera to the test. I'm thankful that we are moving toward longer days. The biggest challenge lately has been finding the time to capture photos when it is bright outside.

Day 227: Nico is a little gentleman when it comes to food time. He waits patiently for the go-ahead to dive in. His release command is "Ok" and we often test him by trying to trick him with words or phrases like Ocean, Oakley, Oklahoma, Kayla, or Okay Corral. He is rarely fooled though. It is all mental exercise and practice listening for specific commands.

Day 228: Incoming!!! Nico had a slow start to the whole idea of catching but is making up ground fast. He is fairly good at catching his daily vitamins before each meal. He also enjoys catching and gobbling up snowballs.

Day 229: I think it is safe to say that Nico had a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas. It started last night when he got to open a gift early. This morning he played with all of his new toys for about five to six hours straight, moving from one to the next. By 1pm he was passed out on the couch for several hours, only to get up and start all over again. There are still some gifts from family members on their way, marooned in some postal service distribution center somewhere. I'm sure he will be just as excited for second Christmas. g

Day 230: This ridiculously overpriced ball was not as big of a hit on Christmas morning as I would have hoped. Shelly, being as wise as she is, said that Nico would play with it if it were outside. Sure enough, he had a ball (pun intended) chasing after it in the yard today.

Day 231: Nico went on his first skijoring outing today. His pulling skills were put to good use, although he was a little confused as to when he was allowed to pull. Now we need to upgrade him to a proper harness so it is a little more comfortable for him.

Day 232: Nico had second Christmas today. He got a wonderful Ruffwear winter coat from his grandma. So far he hasn't shown signs of being overly sensitive to the cold but I'm sure he'll enjoy this once winter really sets in.

Day 233: Nico made a good effort today at seeing if his new jacket could act as a superhero cape and let him fly. Fortunately for everyone gravity still has an effect on him and his paws mostly stayed on the ground.

Day 234: My mom gave me a new camera bag for Christmas. It looks a lot like Nico's magic treat pouch. I'm fairly certain he thought it was an upgrade for being such a good boy and that it would be filled with a massive amount of treats. Haha.

Day 235: As Nico's front legs plant during a full-speed run and he pushes off with his front legs to start the transition to the powerful launch from his hind legs, the skin on his face continues its downward velocity as his skeletal system begins accelerating upwards. As a result, his entire face looks droops significantly. It is a split second in time that only a camera could catch. A funny one none the less.

Day 236: Happy New Year! Nico is looking forward to a year of fun, adventure, and meeting more people.

Day 237: Shelly, Nico, and I headed to Lake Champlain this afternoon in search of a Pacific Loon, a rare bird for our area. Nico wasn't too thrilled with standing around in the cold looking at birds but he had a blast tearing it up through the snow on a short side adventure.

Day 238: Denise Erenstone gifted Nico a skijoring harness yesterday, her and her husband are the ones that first cued me into skijoring many years ago when I worked for the Adirondack Mountain Club. I gave Khyber's setup to our friends Kendra and Seth to use with Chester. That harness was too big for Nico so he needed a new one. Today was his first real outing. Nico did excellently and is an enthusiastic puller. He is still a growing pup so we likely need to take it easy this winter, which will be hard because I love skiing and Nico loves pulling.

Day 239: Nico's giving me the ole side-eye for distracting him from watching the neighbors.

Day 240: One of our favorite features of Nico's e-collar is the built-in headlights that can be turned on and off remotely. They not only help us keep track of him in the yard at night, but are also handy when walking through dark sections of our neighborhood.

Day 241: If there were ever a day that we could all benefit from the distraction of a goofy dog today would be that day.

Day 242: I am grateful to work at Paul Smith's College Adirondack Watershed Institute for many reasons. One of them is having access to beautiful lakes and miles of trails right out my office door. Today Nico and I went for a quick skijoring run on my lunch break, it's a great way to drain some of that puppy energy.

Day 243: Nico and I took a short walk down to Lower Saranac Lake at the end of the day. He had a blast running around the shore and out on the ice. Temperatures were in the mid-teens and Nico couldn't seem to care less.

Day 244: Shelly, Nico, and I went out on Lower Saranac Lake to go ice skating this afternoon. The ice was ranging from 3.5 to 5.5 inches thick so we decided to keep our trip short and close to shore. Nico had a blast running around the ice though.

Day 245: Nico conducting an olfactory survey of the neighborhood. It was a beautiful day in the Adirondacks. I went nordic skating on Lower Saranac Lake today with two friends. Covering long distance on the ice is tough on a dog so Nico stayed home. The ice ranged in thickness from 2.5 to 6 inches. Be careful if you decide to head out on the ice.

Day 246: This is what was waiting for me at the head of our driveway when I got home from work. I’ll let you imagine what happened as soon as I crossed over Nico’s boundary.

Day 247: This is the "You're not stupid enough to think you can get this ball from me, are you?" look.

Day 248: You are looking at pure joy.

Day 249: While I greatly enjoy all the energy Nico has, these are the moments I enjoy the most. He loves to snuggle with Shelly or I. When he’s really out it’s possible to pick him up and move him without him waking up.

Day 250: This is Nico talking to me as I put my boots on and get ready to head out to work. Despite his light protestations I left him home. While he is fairly well behaved at the office he is still a bit of a distraction and therefore only comes in at most one day a week.

Day 251: Nico had a tough day of attacking the snow shovel and chasing snowballs. We didn’t get as much snow as expected but Nico still had fun playing outside.

Day 252: A little snowball action in the yard today. Nico loves jumping for, pouncing on, and catching them. Like every dog I've had, he seems confused when they hit the ground and magically disappear. It's both amusing and a bit sad to watch him sniff around trying to find them.

Day 253: When I get home from work Nico greets me with an incredible amount of enthusiasm. I have a hard time getting through our front entryway because he is plastered against my legs squirming. Once the initial greeting is over he typically grabs a toy and repeatedly presses it against me in an effort to get me to play with him. I do my best to ignore him until he has calmed down a bit because rewarding the excited energy reinforces not so polite greetings with other people, some of whom aren't appreciative of being leaned against or tripped by an excited squirming puppy.

Day 254: I love the white stripe up Nico's nose.

Day 255: This is Nico's "feed me" face. It typically works.

Day 256: This is Nico sitting next to me on the couch asking if he can go to work with me. I didn't intend on bringing him in but his pleas worked at the last minute.

Day 257: Nico always has snow on his nose when he is outside because he can't resist sniffing every track or footprint in the yard.

Day 258: It's cold outside and everyone is bored, including Nico. Once temperatures drop below 10F I start to be cautious with the amount of time we spend recreating and adventuring outside. When we went out this morning it was 1F. Nico was more than happy to come right back after doing his morning business.

Day 259: Nico say's, "you better get 1,000 likes on this photo, my paws are cold!" Don't worry folks, Nico's paws are ok. But they were getting cold every time we went out today. It was below zero when we ventured out for his morning bathroom break

Day 260: Nico is very nosey, both in his attention to neighborhood happenings and his habit of sniffing everything in the yard. If he were allowed, I'm sure he would run all over town saying hi to everyone and checking in on them.

Day 261: I spent ten and a half hours on Zoom calls and in meetings today. Shelly took Nico for a walk this evening as I was on a board meeting call for The Waterman Fund. Afterwards she sent me this photo of Nico passed out sitting up on the couch with his head on her shoulder.

Day 262: When Nico was a little puppy we thought maybe he had one crooked ear. It turns out that he sticks one, or both, out depending on his mood. It isn't consistently one, the other, or both. I'm not sure if it has to do with listening or just an expressive thing he does. He also perks his ears up, as most dogs do, when he is on alert.

Day 263: This afternoon I was packaging up a bunch of photography equipment. Over the years I've accumulated a lot of "things:" camera bodies, lenses, flash units, sliders, gimbals, drones, etc. With my switch from Nikon to Sony, much of this is no longer of value to me. I've also been in a major purge mode. It feels a bit like sending kids off to college. Some of this equipment has been with me for years. I'm keeping my favorite Nikon DSLR and two lenses. This was the camera used to photograph Khyber and what I use when shooting underwater images. For once, Nico quietly sat next to me chewing his bones with boxes and gear spread all over the living room. Usually, he walks around trying to steal items from my gear stash.

Day 264: This is the “can we leave the office now” look. Nico is pretty good at judging when the work day is almost over. Although he tends to want to bug out about an hour early.

Day 265: Squinty eyes on a bright winter day in the Adirondacks. While Nico has proven tolerant to the cold, his weakness is his paws. We have a pair of booties tucked away among Khyber's gear somewhere but are having a hard time finding them. It will surely be hilarious the first time Nico wears them.

Day 266: We left Nico home for two hours to go cross-country skiing. This is what we returned home to. The one challenge of Shelly working from home and me taking Nico to work occasionally is he is never alone. We do leave him home to go out shopping, but never had this happen. Maybe he knew we packed up all the fun stuff and decided to throw a tantrum while we were gone? It looks like we need to do a little work to address his separation anxiety.

Day 267: Nico likes to stand at the top of our stairs and stare down at me. He does this even if I am not at the bottom of the stairs, presumably waiting for me to come to find him.

Day 268: Nico had a blast running around in all the fresh snow in the yard this afternoon. If only I could figure out how to channel his energy into shoveling the driveway. Maybe he could pull a little plow?

Day 269: Shelly was outside shoveling, Nico wanted to be out with her. He has serious FOMO (fear of missing out), especially when it comes to Shelly doing something. He is definitely a mama's boy.

Day 270: This is what trying with 100% effort looks like. Nico is no slouch when it comes to running around the yard. It is an important job that he takes very seriously. He has no time to casually waste away the days by walking from one corner of the yard to the other. After all, if you want something in life you better get right to it.

Day 271: Sometimes you just need to use your own leg as a pillow. We took Nico for a long walk this evening and now he's all ready for an evening nap.

Day 272: Sometimes you just need to use your own leg as a pillow. We took Nico for a long walk this evening and now he's all ready for an evening nap.

Day 273: Nico and I went for an afternoon ski with some friends. He started out skijoring but was too distracted with other things, so ended up running like a wild child. He had a blast romping around in all the fresh snow. I've been testing a new autofocus mode on my new Sony camera that I hope will result in a higher keeper rate for action shots. This camera was already a step up for autofocus from my previous cameras but this may push it even higher. It certainly worked well for this shot.

Day 274: Life has been stressful lately. I often find myself wishing my only responsibility in life is to keep this little guy safe, healthy, happy, and occupied. The irony is, I believe that is what Nico perceives my role in life to be.

Day 275: Another day, another shot of Nico flying over the snow.

Day 276: Nico: “Hey Dad, it’s dinner time.”

Day 277: The ground wouldn't let go of this stick, but that didn't stop Nico from trying to get it. The snow has hidden most of the yardsticks from him, but occasionally he finds one sticking through. All kinds of good stuff will emerge in the spring, including poop that can be eaten, toys that can be played with, and sticks that can be chewed.

Day 278: Nico likes watching TV with Shelly and I in the evening. If it something good he will legitimately watch for awhile. Mostly, he is just bored and goes to sleep.g

Day 279: The treat stare. Treats, toys, and strange noises are all excellent ways to get a dog to look straight at the camera. I'll often hold a treat or toy just above the lens as I am taking a photo. Although you need to be prepared for the dog to suddenly rush the camera if you dilly dally too much.

Day 280: I told Nico he needed to stop and smell the roses. So he did, literally. Happy Valentines Day everyone.

Day 281: Little known fact, Nico's tongue is nearly as long as his tail.

Day 282: Nico spends most of the morning snuggled up on his bed and with his blanket that one of our followers (Mary Caruso) made for him. He needs to make sure he is fully charged to cause chaos and terror by the afternoon.

Day 283: This is the "I heard something and may need to bark so everyone in the neighborhood knows" look. Nico is much more vocal than Khyber. When Khyber did bark it always scared the crap out of me because it was unexpected and I think that scared him! Haha.

Day 284: Nico has to sniff every track in the yard each morning to get a full picture of all the happenings overnight.

Day 285: Here is Nico standing naked in the yard. A handful of folks criticized us for the invisible fence, then again for an electronic training collar. What they didn't take the time to understand, notice, or realize is that Khyber rarely ever had a collar on. This wasn't always true, when he was younger he needed to be leashed regularly. But as we built trust and established rules and boundaries, I had no concern about him going anywhere. All of these items, whether they are treats, leashes, or an invisible fence are tools that help safely build a trusting relationship and bond with a dog. This is a tiny little baby step for Nico but we're slowly headed in the direction of him being able to be safely off-leash anywhere we go without having to depend on these tools.

Day 286: This photo captures so much of Nico's personality. He loves holding on to things with his paws, including this piece of ice. He would love to be laying down while chewing on this but doesn't want his belly to touch the snow so he's in this awkward half sitting half lying pose. He is pretty sure the ice is something he can eat but isn't quite sure yet so he's gently licking it. He refused to come inside as he sat in the yard working on his giant piece of ice.

Day 287: Shelly and I took Nico out birding this afternoon. He is a big whiner whenever we are in the car. We aren't entirely sure why, my guess is it's because he isn't allowed to sit in front with us. He does fairly well on rides into work, but anything different and he can be quite annoying. When we are slowly cruising back roads looking for birds having the window rolled down distracts him enough that he quiets down. Nico is going to have to get used to car rides because as soon as the pandemic is over we're going on a road trip.

Day 288: It was a go to work with Dad day for Nico. He hasn't been to work with me in a few weeks. It's really nice being able to take him for a walk in the woods mid-day. It allows me to wear him out a bit so I can stay focused during work.

Day 289: Nico staring down an incoming snowball. His catching skills are improving but occasionally they hit him directly in the face, neck, or chest. Don't worry, no puppies were harmed in the making of this photo.

Day 290: Having your daily life documented through photography is tough. Sometimes the camera is not your friend. Nico didn't want anything to do with it this evening. Refusing to look at the camera, likely in part because I got off the couch and disrupted his evening snuggle time to take this photo.

Day 291: It's always fun capturing Nico midair. I think I might need to dress him up as a superhero at some point.

Day 292: For the first time in what seems like a long while the sun came out in Saranac Lake. Nico, Shelly, and I all wished we could spend the day outside but work had to be done. We did get a brief lunchtime reprieve in to enjoy the sunshine.

Day 293: Poor Chester has to deal with Nico's antics whenever we go for a walk. Nico is getting better at not jumping all over dogs but he still really loves to do drivebys on Chester. It's slow progress on teaching appropriate behavior around other dogs, especially dogs that aren't fond of being jumped on. The irony here is Chester would literally run Nico over when he was a little puppy.

Day 294: We took Nico ice fishing for the first time today. While the rest of us were breaking through a half-frozen slushy mess on the lake, Nico decided it was easier to just walk on air just above the ice surface. I was expecting him to quickly get bored and then be a little whiny monster. He did great though, wandering all over the lake sniffy out everything worth sniffing. With all the progress made with this electronic collar and recall, we weren't concerned if he wandered off as long as he was in sight.

Day 295: Nico likes to live on the edge. Occasionally he falls off...

Day 296: Nico was not so pleased with the negative temperatures this morning. This is his post-bathroom couch sulking because we didn't go for our morning walk.

Day 297: This is Nico standing right on his electronic fence boundary as I shovel the driveway. I almost never put his collar on him anymore. The one he has on is his training collar so I can vibrate or beep him if he starts pushing the limits. We also use this on our morning walks to help with loose leash walking. We’ve been working on his response to encountering dogs while walking. A few months ago he would freak out in excitement; pulling, howling, and barking. We’re at a point now where a dog on the other side of the street will result in one pull and one bark. The ultimate goal is to be able to walk directly adjacent to a dog with not much more than a sniff. This is one of Nico’s biggest hurdles. He just wants to play and jump on every dog he sees. We went through this with vehicles and people, so I’m sure we’ll be successful with dogs as well.

Day 298: This is the "I'm cute, I'm hungry, and it's breakfast time" look. Nico knows that after our morning walk it's breakfast time. I always make myself a cup of coffee before feeding him and he always stands at the threshold to our kitchen with this look, staring me down the whole time.

Day 299: Nico was doing the cold foot dance this evening while out for a bathroom break. We are forecast to experience a nearly 50F temperature swing from tonight through Thursday. I'm sure Nico is looking forward to that.

Day 300: The ear.

A Photo A Day For Life: Day 201 - 300

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