The Greatest Adventure’s Scuba Steve film is out!
Jan 20, 2026
TRENTON—The video featuring Scuba Steve aka Xube, the dog that found his forever home while staying at the SPCA of Hancock County and being the focus of a national photography and video campaign, was released on YouTube this weekend and is free to watch.
The 45-minute video features Scuba Steve, of course, and also the crew from the Greatest Adventure/Dog Breath Photography, multiple gorgeous Mount Desert Island locations, a fishing boat, and a lobster roll in June.
Scuba Steve had spent his last year at the SPCA of Hancock County.
He is a dog of many names: Scuba Steve. Xube. Scube. Cutie Face. Scuba Man. Sweetest Boy Ever. Mr. Perfect. Scuba. Steve. Xubie. Young Steven. Xuben. Steven J. Cankles.
Almost his entire life, Scuba Steve lived in a shelter in a cage waiting for a home.
Before Trenton? The pup was in other shelters. Prior to Trenton, he was in an animal shelter that was shut down for cruelty, one of the Fab 5 that the Hancock County shelter rescued.
“The Fab 5 came into our care in August when we assisted the Maine State Animal Welfare Program in placing the dogs from an animal cruelty investigation,” SPCA Development and Communication Coordinator Mariah Donovan said. “They all needed a tremendous amount of care.”
In Trenton, Scuba Steve and the rest of the Fab 5 gained needed weight, were taken care of, vaccinated, and loved.
Still, he’d been there for almost a year and he hadn’t had a single application. He didn’t like other dogs. He was anti-cat, but according to Donovan, he was the ultimate people dog.
For his week of stardom and adventure, Scuba Steve travelled on a lobster boat and chilled on Donovan’s lap, visited a lighthouse, toured around Bar Harbor, and made some great new human friends who are the people behind Dog Breath Foundation: Kaylee Greer (bestselling author, puptographer and star of National Geographic WILD’s three-part television mini-series Pupparazzi) and her three-human team.
For days, professional photographers and videographers surrounded and cared for Scuba Steve/Xube determined to give him a happy home.
“He’s watched all his adoptable counterparts get visits from families, and ultimately go home. And still—he waits. So patiently. With a big dream in his heart.
And that’s where we come in!” Greer wrote in an email last June. “We will push those photos out to the world via both traditional and social media in order to rewrite the ending to his story.”
It’s exactly what they did and they did it at gorgeous locations. Greer likened Mount Desert Island to a Grimm Brothers’ fairytale.
“Splashing waves, wet rocks, moody, swirly skies. Every day in Maine has been an adventure,” she explained.
And Donovan?
“Mariah is one of the most fun people that we have ever had the privilege to meet all across The Greatest Adventure. Not even just The Greatest Adventure, but just in life in general. Like, talk about a sparkly, bright piece of glitter that enters a room and lights up every corner of it,” Greer says in the Youtube video.
Greer could also be describing herself.
She is, according to her website, “one of the most sought after multi-international, award-winning ‘dogtographers’ in the world and a creative leader in her industry, has dedicated her life to telling the stories of the dogs who have been forgotten and left behind. Through her camera lens, her mission is to give a voice to the voiceless, and capture the endless spirit and whimsy of dog in a single photograph.”
When Greer’s crew first met Scuba Steve, they headed to the play yard outside the Trenton facility.
“The first thing that I notice is that he is by far the most toy motivated dog that we have met and worked with,” said Sam Haddix, part of the Dog Breath Foundation team, focusing on lighting and photography. “And it doesn’t matter if he’s just met you, he wants to play. He says, ‘I’m going to use the entire yard.’”
A lot of dogs have shared that yard.
The Hancock County SPCA has hosted over 300 animals in 2024, taking care of them all, hoping to find them safe and loving homes.
That intake number was triple 2023’s.
Just in 2020, Maine shelters took in 2,540 stray dogs, 2,271 surrendered dogs, and 6,131 dogs transferred from other areas. 97% of those were reclaimed or adopted.
For cats in the same year, shelters took in 6,813 stray cats, 6,237 surrendered cats, and 3,618 cats transferred from other areas. Of those cats, 85% were adopted and 5% were reclaimed.
The need never stops.
The need is constant and it is always there.
That’s why Greer and her crew photograph and film animals that need homes.
According to Dog Breath Foundation’s website, “Photography is an incredibly impactful and persuasive medium, with a power to give a voice to the voiceless.
For many shelter dogs, a single image is their only shot at getting noticed by potential adopters, and finding their forever homes.”
That’s exactly what happened to Scuba Steve, aka Xube.
“After 331 days at the SPCA-HC, several years in shelters before, and coming into our care emaciated and neglected—Xube. is. home. On Xube’s last day of his Greatest Adventure with the @Dog Breath Photography, his perfect humans came along, and Xube immediately decided that they weren’t returning home without him,” the SPCA posted at the end of June. “Not only do they have the experience and ideal situation for Xube, they have hearts of gold that saw him for the amazing, perfect, sweet baby he has always been.”
“Being at the SPCA and within his kind of timeline there, Scuba Steve never once even had a single meet and greet. No interest really whatsoever. And to know that we’re here still in Maine and we’ve just wrapped up one of the most meaningful great adventures we’ve ever done and he’s got a meet and greet and somebody’s here to see him and to look truly into his heart and see like the colors that are in there,” Greer said. “This is everything we could have ever dreamed of.”
It’s likely everything Scuba Steve dreamed of, too.
MORE ABOUT THE GREATEST ADVENTURE
The Greatest Adventure began with a point and shoot camera at a shelter near Boston, Massachusetts, but the mission that’s driven Greer forward has expanded.
“I began my photography career as a shelter volunteer taking photos to help adoptable dogs find their forever homes. Over the past 12 years, I have built up my business, traveled around the world photographing dogs, shot for huge commercial brands and taught sold-out workshops, but after all that time my dream of helping shelter dogs through the power of photography the dream that started everything has only grown bigger,” Greer says in an introductory video on the YouTube channel.
Every dog she saves? It means something. The photos and video she and her crew create together are more than simple photos and videos; they are art. And art? Art captures spirit. It makes people feel. It makes people act. It makes people think.
Here’s the thing: there’s a little bit of magic involved when this crew works. They have to find the personality of a dog and show it—somehow—to the world.
Why?
For one big reason: because dogs like Xube need lives and adventures and love beyond the amazing kindness of shelter volunteers. They need homes and those happy endings to their stories that they deserve.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
ADOPTABLE PETS at the SPCA of Hancock County
SPCA of Hancock County’s Facebook page is here.
DOG BREATH FOUNDATION INFORMATION:
- Dog Breath Foundation’s Facebook.
- Dog Breath’s YouTube channel is here.
- You can visit The Dog Breath Foundation website to find out more about the initiative, and to support its mission.
- To donate
ANIMAL WISHLISTS FOR THE SPCA OF HANCOCK COUNTY
- Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/39PU8UDQX2H64…
- Chewy wishlist: https://www.chewy.com/g/spca-of-hancock-county_b68283687…
To learn more about the Dog Breath Foundation, and to support the mission, visit http://dogbreathfoundation.org
The Dog Breath Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization registered in the United States. All donations are tax deductible under Section 170 of the United States tax code for US Citizens.
UPDATED IN THE BEST WAY! He Waited His Whole Life, Then Came The Greatest Adventure
UPCOMING EVENT JANUARY 24 TAROT FOR TAILS
The SPCA’s Second Annual Tarot For Tails event is being held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, January 24, at the non-profit’s animal shelter at 141 Bar Harbor Road. The event will include tarot card readings and chair massages available.
The cost is only $25 for a 15-minute reading with one of our volunteer tarot card readers. You can sign up for multiple readings if you like. The cost of a 15-minute chair massage by Massage Therapist Mandy Newell of Mount Desert is also $25.
To reserve you tarot reading visit https://pci.jotform.com/form/260045795830056 and chair massage reservations can be made at https://pci.jotform.com/form/260056903001140
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