Normally I like to keep these blog posts about my clients and their wonderful portraits/engagements/weddings/etc, but this one is a little different. It’s most certainly still about photography, but it’s a little more personal this time. It may be a little longer too, but if you’d like to learn a bit more about me… read on!
Let me start with my wife. Not only is my wife incredible… she’s absolutely incredible! As many of you know, she went to grad school at Lesley University, where we met (insert “awwww” here). While she was doing her internship at the Lowell Adult Day Treatment Center (LADT), a day treatment program for chronically mentally ill adults, something she worked hard to do was to bring a therapy dog in to spend time with the clients. Kelly looked into an organization named Dog B.O.N.E.S., or Dogs Building Opportunities for Nurturing and Emotional Support, and found a new “graduate” of the program named Tucker. This isn’t your average therapy dog, no no, he’s a mix of mastiff, boxer and black lab. He’s huge! And he’s only gotten bigger since he started his “job” at LADT about a year ago. Even though Kelly is no longer an intern there (she now works full time in another division of the same company) the therapy dog sessions every Wednesday continue on, and Tucker loves every minute of it. In fact, his human, Beth, reported that Tucker makes sure he goes into each and every room at the LADT center to greet everyone and make them pet him at least once, he’s hysterical!
“Where are you going with this, Keegan?” you might be asking. Well, ever since Kelly got Tucker his job at LADT I have always wanted to meet him. I love dogs and have been wanting to get one for quite a few years now, but our home and time schedule will not allow for it, unfortunately. As some of you know, these last few weeks have been extremely stressful for me. This isn’t a sob story at all, it’s just a fact of life and something I am working hard to deal with, but the pressures of my full time job at Lesley, my photography career I am working so hard on, and the photography program I am in have been weighing heavily on me. Since my wife is a therapist she has been doing her best to make sure I take care of myself, in addition to my clients, so I don’t get burnt out. The last two weeks were especially difficult, the wedding album submission deadline was at the beginning of the week to make sure they shipped in time for the holidays, but all is well and I am so happy with how they came out, I can’t wait to get them!
Kelly told me last Saturday that she had a surprise for me (today) and that I was going to absolutely love it. So the week went on, I tried to get her to give me some clues, but she wouldn’t budge. Finally, today arrived and we hopped in the car and made our way out to Westford, I was pretty excited but not sure what to expect. We pulled up to this big beautiful red barn that had stables all around, it was like being out in the country, a stark contrast to where I spend most of my time. I wasn’t sure what we were doing there, since Kelly told me that we weren’t going horseback riding (a sport I have not been a participant in before), but to just walk around because we were a little early. That’s when I took these photos…
This is a goat. Not a dog. I do not know this goats name.
So after walking around and snapping these photos (and a bunch of others, but these were my favorites), Kelly let me know that my surprise was almost there. I had no idea what she was talking about. We were at a stable, why wouldn’t it be horse related? Turns out, Beth, who is Tuckers human, also owns a horse, and she was bringing Tucker there to meet me! So this was my surprise, getting able to leave the city, spend some time with my wonderful wife walking on some trails in the woods of Westford, with a certified therapy dog who I have been wanting to meet for a year and would do anything to make anyone happy! To some, that may sound like a regular day or something they wouldn’t like to do, but it was absolutely perfect. My wife knows me better than I do, and she knew just the thing that would help me relax. The three of us (Kelly, Tucker and myself) went on a nice walk, played “fetch” (he just destroyed the sticks instead of bringing them back, but that’s ok.), and talked to Beth for a while, it was such a treat!
So, thank you to my beautiful wife for this very relaxing day. Thank you to Beth for sharing your wonderful dog with me and the clients at LADT who love Tucker so very much. And a huge thank you to Tucker! Your gentle and playful attitude, despite your enormous size, was just what I needed buddy! I feel very refreshed after today, my head is clear, and I’m reading to tackle even more work and get booking for the upcoming wedding season!
Here are some of my favorite photos from our walk today, it was so much fun!
This was Tucker taking Kelly for a “walk”, grabbing the leash and pulling her forward, he wanted to explore!
Beth’s horse, Red, relaxing while we all chatted.
Flower, the barn cat, swatting at Tucker. They were absolutely hysterical playing together.