Pecorino, the peripatetic photographer’s pet

At first I thought, Oh, why can’t the dog get out of my picture? And then I thought, Oh, maybe he’ll enliven it

Indeed. Toni Anzenberger’s adopted dog, Pecorino, is the strangely congruent foil for his stunning photos of Europe's sites and sights. Smithsonian magazine tells the story in Bone Voyage:

“One day eight years ago, a young landscape photographer from Vienna was visiting a farm near Verona, Italy, when he learned about a spotted puppy with black ears that no one wanted. [He] adopted the dog and named him Pecorino, thinking it meant ‘little sheep’ in Italian. Only later did [he] learn that he’d named his new best friend after a cheese. ‘At least Pecorino sounds cute in German, like a clown’s name,’ Anzenberger says. ‘It’s not like calling your dog Gorgonzola.’”

By necessity, Pecorino traveled with Anzenberger on assignment. Trouble is, he tried to hog (or, rather, dog) the scene. What did Anzenberger do? “...he soon realized that Pecorino added character to the pictures. So he began photographing the dog everywhere, on the streets of London and the shores of Greece, next to windmills in the Netherlands and the statues in Rome.”



Travelling with Pecorino was and is not without its challenges, but the photogenic pup more than makes up for this with his proficient posing. “The pooch often chooses his own poses, and look left and right on command, Anzenberger says. Cats or female dogs don’t distract him. Once he hears the camera shutter stop clicking, he strikes a new pose. When he has finished his work, he demands to be petted. He prefers being petted even to eating, though he does like fresh bread and spaghetti.”



Toni Anzenberger’s photographs may be viewed at his website.