There was a time not too long ago if I had pushed a big lens in Frieda’s face and pushed her to stand up with my free arm (while sheep were a few feet away) I might have sacrificed the arm in the process. Frieda is a changed girl, and we are good buddies, she is lying by my feet now, groaning and drooling. I am shooting photos for the cover of my book on Frieda and Maria, “The Second Chance Dog: A Love Story,” out in the fall.

In the book, I write extensively about the diverse training ideas and approaches I used to keep Frieda from eating me and destroying my dogs and the farm. There was the Beef Jerky Campaign, but there was also the seminal breakthrough for me that came when I devoured the writings of Annie Sullivan, who taught Helen Keller how to communicate with the outside world. The breakthrough, she wrote, came in understanding that obedience was the foundation of learning. This really jelled with me.  Just as Keller struggled to communicate with an alien mind, so did I, and the ideas that inspired changed Frieda’s life, thus mine.

Frieda and I are having a fun time on our cover shoots, she is eager and patient. She is a working dog just as much as Red, and she is just as vain. She used to snarl at the camera, now she preens and poses.