Wednesday, July 27, 2011

New hounds in town

There are ten new hounds in town -- ten newly-retired greyhounds transported from the Caliente racetrack in Mexico to an eager and expectant group of Fastfriends Greyhound Adoption volunteers.

While we waited for the hauler to appear, I wandered down to a corral to meet a four-year-old bounce-back male greyhound named "Arrow". He's in wonderful shape, is very friendly, and will lean on you if you give him just the slightest chance. I don't think it will take too long for him to be placed in another home:


I stayed with Arrow for awhile and took a few pictures when he wasn't trying to get in my face and plant his nose on my lens. He is so much like Katie in this respect: you can't kneel to his eye-level and photograph without him walking to you.

I walked back up the hill to the driveway and met Nascar. Poor guy had his right wrist broken, repaired twice and it's not quite right yet. Using my 10-24mm I took an overhead shot of him napping:

Nascar

Then I walked over to the converted garage that now houses a bathtub and a number of kennels and looked at the kennel muzzles hanging at the entrance. I always liked the different colors used for the muzzles. I have this vague idea in my mind of how I want to show these but I haven't gotten it yet:

Kennel muzzles

Kennel muzzles

Then Tom and the hauler appeared and it was time to see the new arrivals:

Tom pushes the dog hauler down the driveway.

Joyce shares a brief moment with one of the retired greyhounds, Nike.

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The greyhounds were quickly taken to the corral where they were checked for ticks:

Nike

...took a quick dip in the pool to cool off a bit:

Gem (front)

...then bathed:

Monty

...then photographed for their website, examined, and taken back to the corral to be small dog- and cat-tested:

Gem

For one particular hound, taking a second dip in the pool is better because being cat-tested is a bother:

Gem

In most of these pictures I used fill-flash to lighten shadows. Arrow's and Nascar's pictures are in open shade with no flash used. The 10-24mm zoom was used most often, although I did switch to the 50mm f/1.8 to take some informal portraits:

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Shady

It was fun to see the new retirees prepped to be made ready for fostering and eventually placed in their forever homes.

7 comments:

  1. I miss meeting the hauler here! It's always a lot of work, but so much fun to see the hounds beginning their retirement!

    I love the portraits!

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  2. Lovrly picd. Very enticing to adopt a greyhound.

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  3. Don't they handle everything so well! I'm wondering why they do the cat and small dog testing so soon? They're given a few days to settle down in the GAP kennels here before being tested and even then there can be surprises after going to their new homes!

    Lovely photos of lovely dogs. I want them all!

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  4. @carrie & verobirdie: thanks!

    @greyhoundcansit: many times the greys' foster parents are there to take them home on arrival day, so it's convenient to have the dogs tested at that time rather than later. nice to have that info so it can be put on their website.

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  5. I have been there to meet the hauler for our group many times, I love seeing all those new faces and thinking about how much their life is going to change!

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  6. and for every new face that one see emerging from the hauler it's hard not to want to take them all home.

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