I was trying to get a nice spring portrait of John with his dog Lucy. Not quite there, but this is pretty nice. He adopted her a couple months ago -- she was in Giant Schnauzer rescue, after she ended up in a pound!

To say they've bonded pretty well would be putting it mildly.

Murphy the Rottie, looking clean and noble after my neighbor John and I gave him a bath. He belongs to our other neighbors, but the dogs here are all friends to us and to each other, so we look after them all.

Murphy after his bath, trying to get the "smell of clean" off him. He's a sweet, easy-going dog, which is a good thing, considering that he's abotu 180 pounds!

You can see some of the other dogs in the distant background -- Drew, Roarke and Terri. John and I had eight dogs out playing in all -- my four, his one and three belonging to friends and neighbors. (We have sort of a dog commune running here!)

Murphy after his bath, with my dogs Ben and Heather. Just a little perspective here -- Ben and Heather are normal-sized retrievers, and Murphy is more than double their size.

For the next couple of weeks, O'Malley and Maisy are with us, while my friends are on vacation. Yes, these are VERY old goldens, adopted as "golden oldies" from Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue ( http://www.homewardboundgoldens.org ).

You can read more about these guys in my Web log, at http://www.spadafori.com

Maisy is visiting with me while her owners are traveling. You can read about her in my Web log, at www.spadafori.com

Chase in midtown Sacramento, waiting for the bar to open.