My very first shoot for the SHELTER project was a particularly exciting one for me. I’ve kept it under wraps for now because I wanted to make sure that the project was really going to work out before I talked about this session. But now that we are at 2nd draft stage with the book, and just weeks away from publication, I figure that I can be confident that it is going to actually happen!

DCH Adoptions have a close relationship with Mark Lizotte – a musician who the Australians among you may better know as Diesel. Mark and his family have a lovely dog named Rufus, and poor Rufus suffered an accident when he was younger, resulting in losing the use of his back legs. It turned out, though, that there is type of ‘doggie mobility cart’ that has been designed to help paralysed animals remain active. And let me tell you, Rufus rocks his cart.

When approached for inclusion in the book, Mark gave us the thumbs up, and after a bit of back and forth with his agent, we agreed on a time and place. It was about April last year, and Sydney these days can be a pretty soggy place. I prayed and hoped for clear weather, but we were greeted with a drizzle of rain, that quickly turned into a downpour.

Mark’s a good sport though, and I can be stubborn as hell, so we did what we could in spite of the weather. After working through the files, I decided to be cheeky. It can’t hurt to ask for a reshoot, right? Mark was up for it, and so we met again a few weeks later.

We were given a slightly bigger window by the rain gods on that occasion,  and I got the opportunity to see first-hand just how well Rufus copes with his ‘disability’. Mark straps his legs into the wheels, and Rufus is off. Chasing balls, running around, sniffing the grass.

He was an awesome doggie model!