Gracie

Gracie is a rescue pup.  I lost my husband and four of our five dachshunds in 2012.  I had no intentions of adopting another dog at the time, enough is enough, if you know what I mean.  So I fostered Gracie, as she was a breed I knew nothing about, and I was not particularly interested in sharing my home with her on a long term basis.  My late husband and I had decided when we lost all the pups, we might consider a greyhound rescue, a sweet couch potato.  Gracie was originally rescued by Bully Wags.  http://www.bullywag.org   After fostering Gracie, then Bella, my co-workers hounded (sorry about the pun) me daily about adopting her.  I took her to my grand son's middle school baseball game one evening, and everyone there loved her.  She made friends with a young boy who had been terrified of dogs all his life.  I had to step back and think... O'no  I can't give up this sweet girl. Two weeks in, she was mine and I was her's.  We rescued each other. The End and Happy Ever After!

Gracie looks to be quite intense, Elizabeth.  I like the over the shoulder view, but wish the vignette wasn't coming right up to her nose.  Have fun with the new camera.

We rescued each other. The End and Happy Ever After!

Great story, I am happy you decided to adopt Gracie yourself!

Yes, dog rescue is a 2-way street.

A wonderful story. 

Hi Elizabeth! Thanks for sharing both the picture and story of Gracie! I'm glad the two of you found each other.

I really like the feel of this picture, and I also like your decisions in post processing. I do like the vignette, though generally prefer them to be a bit more subtle but that's totally personal taste. I do agree with Jim about wanting more (or less) of the hind quarters...in this case I'd be tempted to crop in a little more, not just from the bottom but possibly from the left as well (although I love the leading line/s-curve that you would lose in the background). 

If you don't mind me commenting on the "behind the scenes" stuff on the image, it looks like the focus may be in front of the face. I noticed a couple of things in the techs you listed...first, the 150-500mm lens(es) are not generally at their VERY best at the 500mm end, but often improve dramatically by backing off even just a bit to 450mm and under. In this case, though, I think the focus is slightly off, and noticed you had employed an AF configuration tool. Zoom lenses are notoriously difficult to tweak in AF fine tuning as they may require different adjustments at different focal lengths, and of course they may even seem to require different tweaks at different distances (not absolutely true in most cases IMO, but it's hard to find the perfect distance to tune a zoom lens). Anyway, if you've tweaked the AF configuration for this body/lens combo, watch to see if the focus is consistently in front of the spot you focused on (presumably the eye here)...if it is, you can almost certainly tweak this setting to even better results in the future. (Note that I only brought the AF configuration/fine tune subject up because I noticed it in your techs). 

Nice story and you did very well with your new camera. I like the use of a vignette in your composition.  Gracie looks fine too!....................Jim