Shelter Dogs

A friend of mine gave me this book for Christmas. In her intro, the author writes:

I was never interested in making images of desperate dogs behind bars. While photographs of that nature a valid as a means of illuminating the situation, I feel they evoke little more than pity in the viewer. I wanted to strip away every environmental element and create dignified individual portraits that presented each dog's unique personality. By singling them out and temporarily raising them above their statistical status, the issue is made much more personal. When people view these images, they are often locking eyes with a captivating being who has been cast-aside, abused or left behind.

Let me just say, she did a phenomenal job (you can see some of the photos from the book here) because I can't make it more than 3-4 pages without tearing up a little.