Book features nice portraits — and not one dog named ‘Rover’
I’ve never met a dog named Rover. It’s an oldschool dog name that dates back decades, before people started giving their dogs people names like Lucy, Leroy, Eddie, Gulliver, Jenkins, and the always popular Max and Bailey.
“Rover” is the inelegant title of a very elegant book with 360 photographic portraits of dogs ranging from an aristocratic Afghan hound to a yippy Yorkshire terrier. Mixed breed dogs get equal billing; some are so mixed it would be hard to identify the breeds in their bloodlines.
The dogs usually look directly into the camera, with eyes and facial expressions that range from sad and soulful to joyful and curious. Most are head and shoulders shots, but a smaller number are full body poses.
This is a true picture book. The breed of each dog is not listed. In fact,there is no text at all except for the dogs’ names. Personally, I would enjoy reading about the personalities and back stories of the dogs, but it’s not that kind of book.
Almost 90 percent of the dogs in the book spent part of their lives in shelters or rescues, according to Andrew Grant, the photographer. Some were shelter residents when Mr. Grant snapped their photos. The name next to their portraits is “Homeless.” One of his goals is to convincedog lovers that beautiful and wonderful dogs, including purebreds, can be foundin shelters and rescues.
Since 2009, Mr. Grant has self-published four editions of “Rover” books, raising nearly $2 million for 30 animal sheltersacross the country.
His latest book, “Rover: Wagmore Edition,” was published this month by Firefly Books Ltd. of Ontario, Canada. Its cover price is $40, and Firefly will make a donation to a dog rescue for every copy sold. For $15.99 you can get the Rover 2018 calendar with 12 photographic portraits.
Mr. Grant has a unique way of raising money for the shelters. Dog owners have paid $5,000 for the honor of their dog appearing in a Rover book. For an additional $2,500, a dog gets a two-page spread. For $1,000, people have sponsored one of the homeless dogs in the books. All of the proceeds goes directly to a shelter that partners with Mr. Grant and his Rover project.
“You can honor your dog while saving another dog’s life,” Mr. Grant said in a telephone interview.
The cover of the Firefly-published book “sold” for $50,000. Lucy, a brown-eyed miniature yellow Labradoodle, looks very happytobethere.
“We have connected many generous wealthy donors with wonderful shelters,” said Mr. Grant, who lives in San Diego.
Amanda Hedlund, who worked with Mr. Grant on the book, said they traveled to over 75 cities for photo shoots to benefit 30 shelters. Shoots take anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours.
There are no cats in this book,although Mr. Grant said he had photographed a few cats for earlier books. There aren’t more of them because “theyare really challenging to photograph,”he said.
Shelters that get the donations must have extensive spay and neuter programs, Mr. Grant said.
He said he’d love to have a shelter partner in Pittsburgh, butapparently we would need tofind a donor who would pay $5,000 for his or her dog to be ina Rover book.
Ms. Hadlund said one of her favorite photo shoots was in Nashville, Tenn., with Eddie — “a mix of whoknows-what. He was on death row before his currently family adopted him. “
Eddie seemed a little intimidated by Andrew, and the owner confirmed he was a little afraid of men.
“So I took the camera and started praising him with sweet baby talk,” Ms. Hedlund said. “He sat and posed for me no problem. His mom was crying happy tears knowing he went from being minutes from euthanasia to having his sweet face in our book.”
Participating shelters are listed on the second-to-last page of the book. The last page features Trixie, a black and tan mixed-breed dog with a paw lifted in a “high five” or “good-bye” gesture.
For more information, go to RoverWorks.org.