Phoebe and Daphne…
by James Brush
Tag: phoebe
When I take Phoebe for walks, I notice that she gets freaked out whenever we try to turn around, cross the street, go off the sidewalk into the woods, or do anything other than walk straight ahead.
If we go in a giant circle, finally coming back around to the house, she’s usually fine. If I try to coax her into crossing a street or turning around, it takes a great deal of persuasion. I can’t help but wonder if this is the result of prior training. She was a racer (not exactly retired, more like fired), and I’m beginning to suspect that the idea of turning around or running off the track, in this case the sidewalk, is anathema to her. She just can’t bring herself to do it.
So we walk along the sidewalk track each day, so slowly that passersby must think she’s the slowest greyhound in the world, which may be why she didn’t last in the racing world.
Everytime I go to the front door, Phoebe follows. When I go out to get the paper or to the mailbox, she peers out the front window. It’s obvious she wants to walk, so I’ve started taking her. She does well, but usually about a quarter of a mile from the house in any direction, she just stops. I suppose her fear takes over at that point and then she becomes Frozen Dog, forcing me to coax her along one step at a time until we get back to the house, usually in twice the amount of time (if we’re lucky) it took to get to the turnaround point.
Then the next time I go to the front door, she wants to go for another walk.
I’ve gotten in the habit of walking her to the mailbox or to the end of the driveway to get the paper, but since it’s only fifty feet or so, it seems mean, though I don’t think she minds. It’s clear this dog has a sense of adventure, but for now, I think she only wants short adentures where she can’t get in over her head as she does when we get a quarter mile from the house.
Car rides are also proving to be great fun, and when we get out of the car she’s fine until we’ve reached just about the point where it’s time to go back. It reminds me of Tigger taking Roo to the top of the tree and then not knowing how to get back down. Tiggers don’t climb down. Phoebes don’t walk back to where they started.
Still, we’ve progressed a long way from the first walk when I had to carry her (all sixty pounds) nearly a quarter mile back to our driveway after a dry leaf skittering across the sidewalk had induced temporary paralysis of the legs.
Maybe Daphne is the smart one; she runs and hides when I get the leashes out.
Monday – Halloween: Daphne hid from the vicious trick-or-treaters who kept coming to the door and continued her tradition of guarding the couch in the study. Phoebe, experiencing her first Halloween away from a racetrack, followed me to the door eveytime the bell rang and peeked out with great curiosity at all the costumed kids.
Wednesday: We learned something interesting about greyhounds that we had known, but never really thought about: their skin, which is paper thin, tears very easily. This can be problematic since these are big strong dogs. I came home Wednesday to find that they’d been playing (as they’ve started doing lately). I was home for about twenty minutes with Phoebe whining, whining, whining the whole time while Daphne hid in the study. As it turns out Daphne had been nipped on the scruff of the neck, and her skin had torn. (Perhaps the whines were her version of ‘Timmy fell into the-I mean-I accidentally bit Daphne.’) So I took her to animal emergency, a place with which I am way too familiar.
One of the vets glanced up from a boxer whose ear was bleeding all over the floor, and asked, “Greyhound tear?” without doing much more than noticing the greyhound standing in front of her.
“What?”
“You know, when they play,” the receptionist offered, “their skin’s thin so it tears.”
I nodded. Daphne shivered. “This is our first time with this. How do people prevent it?”
The receptionist shrugged. “I think they just let us sew them back up.”
So sew they did. The vet had to put Daphne under and extend the wound so that he could put a drain in. When I picked her up Thursday morning it looked like her head had been sewn back on, but it’s not as bad as it looks. Of course she looks like Frankenstein’s hound. This was sadly too late for Halloween by a few days.
Thursday: When I got Daphne home, Phoebe followed her around, crying and crying and licking her face. I suppose this is the canine version of abject apology and prostrating oneself in guilt.
All was well when my wife got home and both dogs barked. Phoebe, it turns out is a barker, but Daphne, like most greys does not bark except when she’s in a very good mood. This was bark number seven in five years and a good sign coming from a hound with a drainage tube in her neck.
Friday: We separated them on Thursday while we were gone and will continue to do so while Daphne heals and maybe for a little while beyond so as to avoid anymore roughhousing.
There seem to be no hard feelings. When I got home today they were excited to be reunited, followed each other around, and clearly wanted to play. Now they’re curled up together on the couch.
A hound update, of course. Phoebe made her first visit to the vet yesterday. She seemed to enjoy the ride in the car more than I thought she would. Daphne went along for the ride and stayed low in the back of the car in case there were enemies about. The vet looked Phoebe over inside and out and found no problems. She’s a prefectly healthy dog.
After the vet, she discovered the study, a room she hadn’t been in yet, and I had to ask her not to eat one of my books, but she didn’t seem to mind when I traded her a nylabone for the book. She’s still following Daphne around, still unsure about the humans, but very very curious.
Okay so Phoebe seems to have adjusted to the idea that the humans will be gone for the better part of each day. I am happy to report a lack of destruction for the past two days, and she seems genuinely excited to see us when we get home. She even barked at me when I walked in (a very high-pitched bark that sounds odd coming from a dog of her size), which was startling since greyhounds aren’t known for barking. She apparently learned the skill from a doberman in her foster home.
She’s still shy when we approach; obviously she’s not used to being treated well by people, but then mistreatment is the life to which most racing greyhounds are accustomed. I love the dogs and watching them run together in the backyard is great fun, because they truly love to run, but the greyhound racing business just turns my stomach. I can’t imagine mistreating these beautiful animals. Dogs are great. People suck.
Phoebe seems to be adjusting well to her new life. She has discovered the couch and even wags her tail when we come near her, but she is still afraid to look at us. She comes to the door to greet us, but runs away when we notice her. She watches us constantly and with great interest. It seems she wants to like us, but is still afraid of people.
Yesterday was her first day at home without the humans, and she had great fun tearing up some paper, eating some blinds, and stuffing her leash under the couch cushions. It looked like the work of two dogs, so I suspect Daphne also participated since she has a record of paper shredding. For now, we’ll call Daphne an unindicted co-conspirator.
Phoebe does posess the greyhound quality of being a packrat, collecting bones and fluffy toys and taking them back to decorate her place. Yesterday, in addition to pieces of paper and the blinds, she managed to collect every dog toy in the house and bring them back to her place.
When I let Phoebe out, she likes to run around the backyard and once even rooed and then barked at the neighbor’s lab. She’s almost two and now that she’s off the track, she is probably beginning her real puppyhood, which means lots of exploring, testing the chewability of various objects around the house, and continuing to follow Daphne around like…well, like a puppy. A very large puppy.
This is Greyhound Phoebe. She came to us yesterday from Greyhound Pets of America – Central Texas, and has spent the past 24 hours relaxing on her place by the back door and observing our habits. She is a spook, which means that she is afraid of many things, particularly people. She does not seem to be afraid of Daphne (see the picture beneath my profile) or Morrison.
Phoebe will be two on November 8. We haven’t weighed her yet, but she appears to be about 65 pounds. She is a racer who was forced into early retirement after twice being defeated at a racetrack in Corpus Christi. Her racing name was “Rayna Ann Walker” but for the past six weeks in foster care, has been called “Geena.” She is a sweet girl who loves to eat. She likes chewing on fluffy toys and see
ms to enjoy exploring the backyard.
She was fostered with several cats and appears to be as ambivalent towards them as Morrison is to her as can be seen in this photo (although he does try to get on her place).
Daphne is marginally interested but mainly when they’re outside. In the next few days, she will probably begin exploring and interacting a bit more, and I’ll keep you posted.