Checking for a smile

Last weekend about a dozen greyhounds (all from Arizona) arrived Fastfriends. Because the actual retirement was off-again, on-again during the week there weren't enough volunteers at first to walk all the dogs from station to station (from tick check to bathing, to nail trimming, to ear cleaning, to medical tent). I got the chance to walk a greyhound through part of their processing instead of taking pictures for a change. When I got to the station I handed my short (24" at the shoulders) female greyhound named "Tazor" off to another volunteer I was free to take pictures.

I took pictures of every greyhound during their time in the horse corral. Some of them paid more attention to me than others. It was after being small-dog and cat-tested that another female greyhound (whose name I don't recall -- maybe it was "Tazor" again) walked up to me. I thought I'd try to support her head with one hand while holding my camera with the other. For someone who is just strong enough to drag my shadow behind me it was a little difficult to hold the camera steady, focus on her eyes, and not take too long while doing so. I took two shots: this is the first and the better of the two (the other shot focused on her muzzle):

She was perfectly fine with me doing this. I took my pictures. We looked at each other for a few moments. And then, it was time for her to leave the corral and to bring the next greyhound in. I don't think she'll have to wait long to be adopted.

(Shot with the Nikon D300, 50mm f/1.8 lens, and SB-800 flash; aperture-priority mode, with aperture set to f/2.8; camera chose shutter speed of 1/320 second at ISO 200; -0.7 exposure compensation; flash compensation set to -0.7; center-weighted metered, auto white balance; normal JPG.)