Client Session ~ Kane, Heli, Angel and Tiger the Greyhounds

I just love Greyhounds. When deciding what breed of dog to get originally, I’d seriously considered adopting one of these beautiful dogs, however they were pipped at the post eventually by my love of Great Danes. There are a lot of misconceptions about the sort of pets that Greyhounds make, mainly due to people mistakenly thinking they have boundless energy and need lots of exercise and a big yard. I’ll put that theory to rest right now by saying, this foursome were the. laziest. dogs. I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

Angel and Tiger were first up. Tiger at 6 years old has never raced, due to his size. He’s a big goofy boy and has been a loved pet for all of his life.

Early on in the session, after a quick sniff around the yard, he settled himself down and was quite content just lying there looking gorgeous.

Alexis had only had him for 6 weeks when we had our session but he’d settled in well already. I love this shot of him enjoying the sunshine in the yard.

He was certainly the most playful of all of them, happily engaging in a game of tug-o-war with me. This was rather exciting apparently, and resulted in him having a brief zoomie episode around the yard for all of about 2 minutes.

Six year old Angel shared the yard with Tiger, and spent most of time lounging around, tongue lolling out sideways from her mouth. Just like this really.

With a bit of rolling around on her back too for good measure.

Angel hasn’t always had it so good. She never raced but came from an abusive home at 3 years old. She has very few of her teeth left and I shudder to think the kind of life she had before she was rescued.

Greyhounds always seem to have their little ears tucked back, I guess to be as streamlined as possible! They do create some lovely ear folds for me to photograph though.

They can also be very expressive – here’s Tiger looking very alert – what a cutie!

The next pair, Kane and Heli, were rather shocked at being asked to hang around in the back yard when there were comfy beds on offer elsewhere, so we relocated to the patio area and set up some plush beds for them there which were much more to their taste.

At 11 1/2 years old, Heli is a beautiful old girl. Due to a shocking injury sustained while racing, she was retired at 3 1/2 years old. She had one litter which didn’t turn out as hoped, so was desexed and rehomed with Alexis’ grandma.

With all the responsibility of having a dog around the place, Heli helped to extend her life at home by another 12 months before she needed to go into a nursing home. Greyhounds are amazing therapy dogs and this is just one of the many cases where they have been beneficial for elderly or sick people. With faces like these, it’s no wonder they give people a new lease on life.

Alexis regularly visits the hospital with her dogs, in fact Kane was adopted specifically with that purpose in mind.

When he retired from racing at 4 1/2 years old, Alexis adopted him and he has spent the last 5 or so years as a therapy dog.

Having photographed this gorgeous foursome, I’ve fallen in love with Greyhounds all over again!

As well as working with her dogs as therapy dogs, Alexis is also a fully qualified canine massage therapist. Kane was a willing model as Alexis did a quick demonstration. These images, along with some of the portraits above, will be used on her upcoming website. I’ll be sure to post a link to it from my Facebook page when it’s live for those of you who might be interested in her massage services.

Alexis also works with ‘Friends of the Hound’ which is a volunteer-based, not-for-profit Greyhound adoption program covering from the Northern Rivers area of NSW through to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. These guys do a great job of matching Greyhounds that are surplus from the racing industry (and there are a lot of them) with suitable and loving homes.

If you’d like to find out more about adopting a Greyhound through Friends of the Hound, please visit their website www.friendsofthehound.org.au. Make sure you check out their Facebook page too – www.facebook.com/friendsofthehound