Max at golden hour

I haven't walked Max in quite a while but I've been wanting to and today he was in the right spot at the right time. He had gone outside about an hour before and he's notoriously difficult to get back in because he doesn't come when called. But he had been out long enough and he knew it wasn't dinner time yet, so he allowed me to herd him towards the door of the house where I slipped the harness and leash on him rather than letting him back inside.

He was happy to go along and he attempted the jump into the back of the van, but I had to help. His rear end no longer has quite enough oomph to make that leap. He had no trouble with the two mile route on the road through the park, however. I did hear a little bit of knuckle dragging from the rear legs on the last half of the walk, but for a German Shepherd of his age (12?) he's remarkably fit and ambulatory.

There was an off-leash dog running around while the owner was hitting golf balls.

Della is focused on the dog here, so we steered clear.

It was late afternoon when we started out and it was cloudy and fairly cool. The sun dropped below the clouds about midway through our walk giving us some fifteen magical minutes of the golden hour before the sun set. That time of day makes beautiful pictures of any dog, but particularly a reddish brown GSD like Max. This may seem like a lot of pictures, but I actually narrowed down the selection quite a bit. These are for the shepherd lovers.

The setting sun lights Max's fur on fire, but Della's eyes reflect the nuclear fusion in the sun.

Max may be the last pure bred German Shepherd Dog that I own.

If so, I have no regrets that it was him.