Crowd Control

Bored now. Can we go yet?

Sigh.

We had a great outing at the Fremont Farmer's Market. It started off overcast and chilly but quickly turned to warm and sunny! What a great surprise. Daisy has been to this market once before, but this time there were more people and we spent more time at the stalls. She was a dream! Well, aside from her pokey nose exploring some small tippy ceramics, she did pretty well. Daisy stayed very close to me at one point when it was super crowded. I was looking at some antique jewelry cases on tables, Daisy was behind me leaning so hard that she was practically pushing me into the tables. My dog was crowding ME! As I walked sideways down the tables to look, she just slowly walked backwards while still sticking to me like glue, pinning me against the tables. There were so many people in that small area that she couldn't turn herself around. Daisy was so patient when I browsed and shopped at other booths. One vendor commented on how sweet and mellow she was. She mentioned other dogs have been terrors, even peeing on the merchandise!

Tales from the dark side (adoption groups)

The wonderful folks at Greyhound Pets, Inc are responsible for hauling my Daisy out to Washington state for adoption. I am impressed by their love of what they do. Recently a member shared an article written by GPI's founder, John Hern. It talks about how some run "adoption groups" as a business and cherry pick their greyhounds; only taking in the young, pretty and uninjured. I had no idea, but it doesn't surprise me. Here is the excerpt:

"There are differences between Greyhound Pets, as a rescue organization, and
"adoption" groups that I have seen over the years. When the track was open
in Coeur d'Alene, as many as three or four groups were taking dogs for
adoption. Many times the available dogs would be "picked over" for young,
pretty females, leaving older dogs and brindles or blacks, or injured dogs,
waiting for homes. Greyhound Pets always took dogs on a first-come
first-serve basis. Our statistics during the final years of the track were
60% older males, while some of the other groups were taking 80% young
females. Did this make it harder for us to find homes? Of course! But, you
know what? A few years later, after the other groups without our dedication
to the dogs had ceased operation, we were finding homes for those same
pretty young females, though of course, they were now older. Greyhound Pets
does not care where a Greyhound came from, we are here to help everyone we
can, young and pretty - or old and blind. We are even re-placing dogs from
another now defunct group on the coast. During their time of operation, they
were very vocal critics of our operations. Greyhound Pets has been one of
the most successful Greyhound organizations because we do not "pick" the
dogs we help. We help everyone we can. We do not get involved in political
issues, but concentrate on the dogs. We avoid personality matters and remind
our volunteers that we are here for the dogs, and no other reason."

Adoption. Who chooses whom?

Misty aka "Mist Ya"

Out of curiosity, I checked out the available greyhounds on the GPI web site. Two of the four greyhounds that were shown to me are still available. Actually, there are still a couple greyhounds still there that were part of the same load that Daisy was in. Here are the two greys still available. Misty is 8 years old and was a brood mom. She had a successful racing career but to be honest, I was put off by her age. Money is not exactly flowing at this household and I was worried about vet bills. Sorry, dear Misty! The other dog is Alpern, look at that color and those eyes. She is such a shy girl that I almost think she was afraid of me. I thought she was sweet but we didn't have much of a connection. Alpern is 1.5 and has no registered racing name. GPI does a great job so I'm sure they will all find their forever homes, hopefully soon!

Alpern

Don't tell Daisy, but it wasn't love at first sight with her. I was neutral. I just wasn't sure about another black pet, since I had owned a black cat, Ninja, for years. I wanted to shake it up a bit! But the more time we spent together, the more I saw that she had already made the decision. I was her human! Daisy responded well to me and often came back for attention. The adoption reps noticed it too. A week later I brought her home! Here we are, three months later. Happy as can be.

Who knew orange could be so stylish?

Even though we've been having beautiful summer weather lately, I am already thinking about Fall coats for Daisy. After all, these dogs have little body fat. They get cold! I am inspired by the old racing silks. At one time, I believe these were the regulation color/number combinations for greyhound racing. How cool would it be to have a greyhound walking down the street with one of these on? Of course, it has to be practical. So I am designing a longer coat that will cover more of Daisy's body. The orange "5" is my favorite so I'm going to have one made from orange fleece, then have a "5" sewn on the side. Despite how I feel about the greyhound racing industry, it is where my dog's roots are. So this is a nod to her past.