This week’s Tuesday Photo Challenge at Dutch goes the Photo is “Play” and though the topic is as broad as we want it to be, the photo of a dog used with the post seems to have me focused on dogs this week as well.

When we were staying on the Konkan coast in Maharashtra back in February, there were two dogs who lived at the guesthouse we stayed at. They LOVED to visit the beach with us and especially loved Daegan. I told Sage about how they reacted to Daegan and she said “Of course that’s true – he’s like Justin Bieber for dogs.” which is totally true. If an animal is the least bit friendly to humans in general, they seem to be drawn to be Daegan’s best friend. This was definitely the case with these two. Any time he looked like he was going to go to the beach they would be behind him, ready to play with him on the beach or in the water.

A 10 minute bus ride from us is “The Danforth” – a neighbourhood along Danforth Avenue on Toronto’s east end. There are a few markets we sometimes shop at. One day when I left the fish market, what should I see but this guy. He had three Siberian Huskies, commonly used as sled dogs, in a triple-harness attached to a single leash. He would get on his skateboard and the dogs would take off, carrying him wherever he wanted to go.  What a brilliantly playful form of transportation.

Finally, inspired only by the subject of play and not dogs, or even my own photos is this final photo that was too fun not to share. Project Murphy is an AI that was developed by Microsoft and remixes faces and other things. For example, you can say “What if Justin Bieber were a dog?” and the pictures it would give back to you would doubtless be of some horrifying Bieber-Beagle hybrid.  One night I spent what seemed like hours feeding various ideas in to it. My favourite of the night was one that showed my alternate future. I have to admit, I am a little jealous of my other self’s fame and wardrobe.