Wyatt & Dakota
Management
These are our two studio buddies Dakota Sioux and Wild Wyatt Coyote (Wyatt for short); they are as you can see, very comfortable in their management positions! Dakota is now 3 years old and little Wyatt is just 6 months along; both however are fully in charge of just about any situation that arises here at the studio including preventing any cookie crumbs from ever touching the floor!
Dakota and Wyatt are the 6th and 7th Golden Retrievers we’ve shared our lives with over the past 36 years and they all have been amazing friends and helpers! Dakota came to us 3 years ago within days of having lost our fuzzy friend Madison at the wise old age of 14 years. It was hard losing Madison but little Dakota helped smooth the rough spots and has grown up to be a wonderful girl in her own right.
Wyatt is all boy and I have to be ever watchful when he visits the shop. Dakota has taught him how to steal scrap wood or other small item. They wait until you see them with it and then they run around the shop and play “catch me if you can.” Always good humored, there is little that will stop him if his mind is set on doing something. This is much to the chagrin of the local rabbit and squirrel population who have now had to find travel routes either above the ground or on the other side of the fence.
Perhaps by now you are wondering about the names Dakota Sioux and Wild Wyatt Coyote. We’ve spent several weeks over the past few years tracking and photographing wild horses and other wild critters in Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota. Our last trip west found us sitting in a jeep on the rim of a nameless canyon in South Dakota 40 or 50 miles from the nearest road enjoying a rare but much needed thunderstorm. While waiting for the rain to subside we were talking about the reality that the Lakota Sioux Indians had called that very place home and that it is as untouched and pristine as it was in their time, in fact it has changed very little in the last 10,000 years. It was once of those times when you realize just how small you are and how very out of touch we have become in our modern world. So Dakota and Wyatt are named for that special place and they do their very best to keep us aware of the really important things and life, good friends and a full belly!