Along with the Australian Dingo, Basenjis hold the distinction of being the most ancient dog breed in existence today. They are very inquisitive dogs, have a very strong prey drive, and are unable to bark (they kind of yodel, instead). They can often be identified by their curled tail.

Love that first one. The lines draw your eye right to them. Heads are in a clean spot. Nice strong stance.

Hi,

I like image #1. They look nice together and without collars.

I did not know anything about the breed, and appreciate your short intro statement about them being an ancient breed.

I looked up the breed on Wikipedia and also found something else remarkable, the origin (place) of the breed surprised me.

"While dogs that resemble the basenji in some respects are commonplace over much of Africa, the breed's original foundation stock came from the old growth forest regions of the Congo Basin, where its structure and type were fixed by adaptation to its habitat, as well as use (primarily net hunting in extremely dense old-growth forest vegetation)." --Wikipedia

These two picture are very strong and well done. You did a good job.

I think the first one could be improved further with cropping, however. The blurred bush, on viewer's left should be cropped away. Even parts of the right side could be trimmed. I encourage you to try this and see how YOU like the result.

Sweet dogs. Love the sage framing them in #1! They have endearing expressions!

Spectacular firs image in every way. Your light is less kind in no2, but it's well shot none the less.

John Caldwell

Nice action captures.

love #1,, an eye catcher for me,,

focus, lighting and surrounding are spot on,,

Derry

#1 is amazing. It's hard enough to get ONE dog to look at you.

Thanks all for the kind words. This was the first time I've worked with Basenjis; luckily for me these two are show dogs and as such are pretty well-trained and easy to work with. I think they're very unique looking, and I love the intent gaze they have in a lot of their photos -- very striking.

Jim Rickards wrote:
These two picture are very strong and well done. You did a good job.

I think the first one could be improved further with cropping, however. The blurred bush, on viewer's left should be cropped away. Even parts of the right side could be trimmed. I encourage you to try this and see how YOU like the result.

Thanks, Jim. I decided to include the bush as a natural frame and add, at least in my opinion, an aspect of immersion to the shot; it really makes me feel like I'm peeking through the brush at the subject. I did look at different crops at your suggestion, but I think I like the original best.

If anyone's interested, here are a couple more of these two:

First one is a wall hanger for whoever the owner is...sorry didnt read, just really enjoyed. Thanks for sharing!