I’ve started volunteering with the Newport Beach Police Department’s Animal Control Unit to take pictures of their dogs and cats so they can add pictures to their Petfinder website. Last week was my first session with them, and I had a great time photographing about 20 animals in one afternoon.
First up were the dogs. Many of them were super-exited to be let out for a photography session, and thus just a smidgen hyper. But this white husky was downright calm:
And lots of the dogs had perfect “adopt me” expressions
There was also a regal chihuahua, and a Pug who was just adorable:
The last dog I photographed was Superman, who had just undergone a biopsy for a tumor growing in his right side (so he’s not available for adoption right now). He ended up giving me a classic happy-dog-with-tongue-out look:
After the dogs came the cats. They were hard to photograph, as I ended up just photographing them in their cages 2, complete with poor lighting. The cutest cat1 was this adorable torbie and white (or caliby, I’m not sure):
Especially interesting is how her pattern splits right down the middle of her nose. She’s a torbie and white, meaning that she has a tortoiseshell pattern with tabby patterning in both the dark and light patches (and small white patches on her legs and abdomen). You can see the two types of colored patches clearly on her face: on the right side she has a dark-colored patch (looks like a brown tabby pattern), while the left side of her face is a lighter pattern (looks like an orange or cream tabby). Her nose also shows the difference between the two colorations: brown tabby noses are typically brick red, while cream noses are typically pink3. Her nose is both!
Buckley, seen below, was just adorable: anytime you dangled a toy in front of him, he cocked his head at an angle to look a it.
If you’re interested in adopting a pet, Newport Beach currently houses their animals at the Orange County Humane Society’s shelter in Huntington Beach, California; the shelter is open seven days a week, and Newport Beach is having a 50% off adoption fee sale running until mid July. And, if you’re interested in one of the specific pets above, I’ve included their shelter ID numbers on the gallery image pages (just click on the image to go to the gallery), so you can ask for that particular animal. Or just head to the Newport Beach Petfinder page.
1 And of course I’m not biased at all due to one of my own cats being a torbie and white …
2 I’d hoped to be able to take the cats out of the cages to get something other than the overdone “scared cat looking out of a shelter cage” photograph, but I’ve now learned why those pictures are so common: everyone at the shelter is so busy taking care of animals that it would be wrong to steal their time just so they could help me get pictures that are a bit artsier.
3 I think I may have at least one of these coat colors wrong, though, as orange tabbies have brick red noses (which her orange-sectioned nose is clearly not), so her orange coloration is probably cream. But cream is a dilute color, and brown tabby isn’t a dilute pattern (and the dilute trait should apply to the entire cat). But hey, I’m no cat pattern expert; I just read graphs on icanhascheezeburger.
More pictures
I took pictures of more animals than I can include in just this one post; to see pictures of everyone, head to my Newport Beach Dogs and Cats for Adoption Gallery or view the Flash slideshow below.
Newport Beach Dogs and Cats for Adoption – Images by Marc Perkins
Getting There
Orange County Humane Society: Located at 21632 Newland St. in Huntington Beach, CA 92646. Their entrance is on Newland Street within a half mile or so of Pacific Coast Highway (1). See their website for more information and hours of operation. Newport Beach Animal Control Unit animals at the shelter are listed on the Newport Beach Petfinder page.
