Woman Takes Best Pictures of Dogs to Improve Opportunity: 'There Is a Soul'

 Woman Takes Best Pictures of Dogs to Improve Opportunity: 'There Is a Soul'

Each year in the U.S., 6.3 million pets will enter the shelter. Among those are thousands of black cats and dogs, and sadly, black cats and dogs have a statistically difficult time finding new homes.

Maggie Epling spends her summers with her grandparents in Pikeville, Kentucky, where she works at the Pike County Animal Shelter.

On Tuesday, he shared photos of some of the black dogs in Reddit shelter.

Simon is a mixture of one year old male pitt. Available at Pike County Animal Shelter — she is shy, but warms up as soon as she can and is very nice and gentle. Photo by Maggie Epling

And captions: "I'm a volunteer animal photographer. Black dogs are often the last to be found, so I try to make sure every black dog in the shelter gets a good picture," Epling shared six photos from there. garnered more than 98,000 votes and sparked thousands of comments.

"I've always loved animals and have been photographing them for yearbook staff since I was in high school," Epling told Newsweek. I had seen articles about photographers helping animal shelters find beautiful home photography, so I called a shelter here in Pikeville and promised to come and photograph their dogs and cats. . "

Pleased with the gift, the director and staff of Pike County Animal Shelter took him upstairs — even giving him a studio setting room and letting him take the dogs out to play before the photo session.

Blinky is a mixed breed for women and is available for download at Pike County Animal Shelter. She is very energetic and has a great personality, is very loving and is definitely driven by food. He has lost his left eye but it does not diminish him. Photo by Maggie Epling

"Beautiful and fun pictures," wrote another Reddit user. "I'm hoping your images will include all of these lovely people." "My rescue guy is a black dog and was set to kill a patient the day before," one commentator claimed. I rescued him. Although he is the best dog ever to be cared for by everyone."

According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, about 920,000 animals of refuge are killed each year.

"I have heard that black dogs and cats are very difficult to adopt," explains Epling."When I first started volunteering, I noticed a few dogs who were having trouble finding homes. Part of you may be superstitious, but I also think black dogs are just struggling to shine when they are likely to find themselves passing houses."

Jersey is a small mixed breed of females. She is one year old and is available to find him at Pike County Animal Shelter. She is calm and well-mannered, a little nervous at first, but she opens quickly and is very loving and sweet. Photo by Maggie Epling

But combining the right light with his talent for photography, Epling is able to create images that he hopes will help unwanted canines stand out. "My hope is that making sure black dogs have good pictures will encourage people to give themselves a chance," he said.

"Look at these beautiful ones. I hope everyone will find their own home," said one Redditor."I don't know why no one wants to take these parts," one user remarked.. Look at them. They are very loving."

Excited by the reaction of the virus to his photographs, Epling said: “My great hope is that it will lead to the discovery — not just of dogs and cats in Pike County but everywhere. My philosophy at first was that even if I could only get one animal. adoption, will be eligible. For me, it's just one dog, but for a dog it's a matter of the whole world changing because of one image. "

Do you have any funny and lovely videos or pictures of your pet that you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com and we'll publish them.