A busy day for the greyhounds

 

It was a totally rockin' day around here as we begin the first official day of summer. The greyhounds spent the day practicing for their summer events.

Talley is doing a whole body twist, maintaining as much body as possible touching the grass.

Danny is demonstrating flattened dog camoflage trick. It was tough for Danny to even open his eyes.

Jillian was probably the most ambitious with her twist and kick.

And Jori was stretching out for maximum comfort.

While they are practicing for summer, we can spend the day at the Pet Blog Hop.

Please join us, it's simple.

The Pet Blog Hop hosted by Life with Dogs, Two Little Cavaliers and Confessions of the Plume. Many, many thanks to the hosts, the Pet Blog Hop rocks.

Please join us, the rules are simple:

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yoo hoo, blue hoo

Well Danny Bleu, guess we can welcome you into the Double Digit gang today.

I can hardly believe you are already 10 years old. How did that happen Bleu?

Happy Birthday Danny.

When evening comes

Our evenings have been fabulous, what can I say. We've only made it up to the mid-50's during the day, but to be lacking in raindrops is such a relief.

What is that?

 

Something happened tonight. It was totally an un-natural occurrence.

During the evening run there was unusual orange cast on the dogs coats.

Impossible. It couldn't be. Nope, not in Oregon.

Oh looky! We had a sunset.

And then there was... what's her name?

Back in the day, my preferred hound mobile was a 1970 Volkswagon bus. I loved the bus, but I missed my automatic transmission and most importantly air conditioning. 

The hounds were styling in that old bus.

I remember the day I picked up Crystal. This little girl was sugar with a pound of extra spice. All 47 lbs of her were total joy. My heart was a goner almost immediately.

As much as we loved her, she loved the acre. That girl loved to run and would run with anyone that take on her challenge. Note in the picture above that as Danny was closing in, she wapped him with her tail. (I never said she played fair).

We affectionately called her our little pocket rocket.

It was really important to the president of the group that Crystal be with another greyhound because she loved to play so much.

One of the beauties of greyhound adoption is that if a dog can't stay with it's family for whatever reason, the hound comes back to the group. It's good for the family, it's good for the next family and it is best for the hound.

While Crystal was with us, a family with four greyhounds was getting a divorce. Fandango, the shyest of the four came to Greyhound Gardens. Crystal immediately to a liking to this boy.

We had an adoption event up at the track in Portland and I was to bring Crystal and Fandango to the event. With a heavy heart, I loaded up the old bus and off we went.

Sure enough, the two found a home together. My heart was broken. I hated handing over her leash, she was my little pocket rocket. With giant crocodile tears I kissed her good-bye and wished she and Fandango a wonderful life.

 

My bus was not to go empty though. While one hand was letting go of Crystal's leash, the other hand was grabbing two leashes, both white and red brindle boys, just like Crystal. Eureka!

One boy was named Star. He was part of the divorced four pack. He was little older and oh so gentle. We had screened the home of a woman who had recently retired, she needed a gentle dog and I knew Star would be perfect. He went home the next day and lived happily ever after.

The other boy had bounced twice, he had a few house breaking issues we were hoping to eliminate by bringing him home and working with him. His name was Bold One and I thought that was weird, so I renamed him Barney.

Here's the unexpected fork in the road. Two and a half years ago, a friend of mine that watches for greyhounds to show up where they don't belong found Crystal on Craigslist. Crystal had been in her home for four years.

When I got wind that she was on Craigslist, I jumped, hopped and screamed at the chance to get her back. My pocket rocket was coming back to the gardens. She's still my tiny little 47 lb girlie and she still tears up the back yard as she races to and fro.

And she's home.

Stay tuned for the riveting conclusion tomorrow.

The black and blue crew

 

 Blender paved the path for our fostering experience. She was a very shy girl. When we went out to the kennel to pick out our first greyhound, she hovered at the back of the kennel, hoping not to be seen.

My youngest daughter, however, was not going to let that happen. As I was oohing and awing over all of the beautiful greyhounds, Holly had all but crawled into Blender's kennel with her. The president of the group was so impressed, that after I took Fonzi home she called and asked if we would be willing to foster Blender.

  

 I really credit Holly for making Blender the wonderful do she is today. Holly spent hours and hours next to Blender's safety spot in the kennel. She read to her, talked to her, watched TV with her.

After about two months in solitude, Holly came out to join us one night in the living room. I'll never forget seeing Blender peak around the corner and bark. She wanted her Holly girl. It only took a couple of nights of that behavior and Blender began joining the family.

OK, I failed my first foster experience. Blender pretty much runs the roost at 12 years old.

 

For a little while, we were a revolving door for blue greyhounds. You don't see very many of them, but as a gaggle of grays, they were really beautiful together.

This is Dezi. He wasn't with us very long when he joined his wonderful forever mama down in Klamath Falls.

  

Danny on the right and Gracie in the middle were the corner stones for the blue crew. 

Mai Tai on the left was this spunky little blue brindle girl. She was placed into a home by another volunteer, so I never kept up with her whereabouts. I suspect though that she kept her family laughing all of the time. She was quite the little ham.

Tomorrow, the walk down memory lane takes an unexpected fork in the road. Come on back.

Back in the day

 

Greyhound Gardens was sort of a Grand Greyhound Station. We were a revolving door for hounds as they found their forever families. I loved that time, and I loved every greyhound that crossed our threshold. 

Some of them managed to wrap their paws around our hearts more than others. This is Barbie. She was a broodie and was absolutely the sweetest dog. Week after week we would show her to families and there just was never a bond. Secretly, I was relieved, she could have become a garden hound. In October 2004, four months after she joined us, we found the better than perfect family.

Don and Jody loved Barbie and Barbie adored them. Sweet Barbie went to the rainbow bridge much too soon, but we still keep in contact (Hi Don and Jody).

I'm sure you all recognize this bluetiful hound boy. Yes, my Danny Bleu was one of those failed fosters. Well sort of. The minute Danny and I laid eyes on each other, we were one.

I spoiled him totally rotten from the very beginning, no body else would have wanted him.

We didn't know it, but Barbie was Danny's momma. It wasn't until around the time she went to live with Don and Jody that we discovered the connection.

Stay tuned, more tails to come.

Kitchen help

Not admitting to guilt.

It's grey dog day!

And yep, the grey dog saw his shadow. Guess we aren't done with winter yet.

That case of spring fever was premature.

Follow that hound

Danny was out back when something caught his attention on the other side of the fence.


This series of photos certainly isn't my best work, but when I looked back over them...


I was amused by the fact that every time the shutter clicked,


Danny was on his back legs.


The greyhounds have a fenced acre that they call home.


And I think that is a pretty long distance to run two-legged.

Say what?

Continuing on with the portrait sessions. I am so happy to announce that I have found a new attention getter to add to my arsenal of ridiculous chicken clucks, meows and high-pitched noises.

I grabbed my iPhone and searched for animal sounds on YouTube.

Worked like a charm. The reaction to the cats were hilarious. Why didn't I think of this sooner?

Just wanna say thank you

To everyone who stopped by the blog. We are truly honored to have so many visitors.

On a very bright note, we spoke to Molly's mom today (the little dog that got Minnie's blood Friday).

She said that Molly was doing much better. On Friday she couldn't stand up by herself. On Saturday morning, she raced her down the hall to get to the cat food.

Yup, nothing like a little greyhound blood to get you running again. :o)))

Sulking::Day 2

OK, I'm the one sulking here.

A few days ago I wrote about the confusion of the time change and the lack of promised extra sleep.

This morning was no different and it became time to line the troops up for a little chat.

It went something like this.

"It's early, I need my beauty sleep. You doggies need to let me have my beauty sleep. 5 am is negotiable. 4 am is crossing a line that I don't think you want to cross.

Have you forgotten that I am the keeper of the kibble? Purveyor of stuffies and soft beds?

I have the power to feed or not feed you. And the wall to wall cushions... can you say hard wood floors?"


And their fearful response you ask?

Talk to the paw.

Yes, I am the alpha bitch.

Come one, show me your best side

I needed a quick model this morning to try out my lights.

Danny was happy to help, for the first click anyway.


Come on big guy, show me your best side.


That's it baby, work the camera.


Come on, you can't be exhausted yet, we're just getting started.


Oh nice! That's a wrap.

Sorry Danny

You can say "here kitty, kitty" all you want and I don't think that damn cat is going to come any closer.


And bringing in the recruits is not going to help, either.

Tails of a shy dog

Nearly seven years ago Joey joined us at Greyhound Gardens. They called him a spook.

He was afraid of everything. Not because he had ever been abused, his trainer truly loved him, but because that was just the way he was wired.

If he were a child, he would be labeled as autistic I'm sure.

Joey made friends with all of the other greyhounds. He was curious about his new humans, but coming closer than ten feet was just to scary.

He adapted to his own routine in his own little world and that is where he lived without variation.

Somedays, it would take us hours just to get him to come inside. But never, ever would he come up to us to get his ears scratched.

And then, two years ago without any warning, he just couldn't stand it anymore. With the safety of a buddy, he came closer. Soon, the closer was all the way up to us and if we carefully reached over his friend, we could scratch his ears.

Now, seven years later, no matter where we are Joey is there. He even flips our forearms to make sure that he is getting his fair share and more of ear scratches. He has a lot of years to catch up on.

Oh Joey, Joey. You are just one hunk o' hound dog. So glad to know that you think the same of us.

Join us for Saturday Pet Blog Hop hosted by Life with Dogs, Two Little Cavaliers and Confessions of the Plume. Many, many thanks to the hosts, the Pet Blog Hop rocks.

Please join us, the rules are simple:

1. Follow your three hosts
2. Add your blog to the Linky
3. Copy and paste the html code into your html editor

We Survived

We survived Monday.


Safely made it through the day without absolutely having to have a nap.


And we're looking forward to getting through the week.

End of the week

Not only did September go on forever, but this has been the single longest week I think I have had to endure.

TGIF

Longest week in history

The week-end is finally here.