Tag: daphne

This is cool.

You can go to Doug Petch’s site and just leave a comment on this post, and he will donate 50 cents to a randomly chosen greyhound rescue group. All it takes is one comment and you can help beautiful, loving dogs escape the life of pure hell and misery to which they are accustomed on the track.

Greyhounds love to run, but if they don’t win, they get killed. Often brutally. They aren’t considered dogs in some states so they can be treated as disposable livestock. It’s a disgusting business and no one who has ever spent time around a friendly, gentle, affectionate grey (as they all are) will ever understand how people can mistreat them, but they do.

It is true that greyhounds are literally running for their lives. Considering that she lost her first two races, it is very surprising that our dog Phoebe wasn’t killed.

So go on. Leave a comment on Doug’s blog. Some greyhound out there losing his last race will thank you for it.

[saveagrey]

Initially, I didn’t have much to say and was just going to post a picture, but that didn’t feel like a Weekend Hound Report, so instead of sitting at the computer wishing for something to blog about, which seems to be very dangerous, I decided to just change the name from ‘Report’ to ‘Blogging,’ thus freeing myself from the tryranny of the word ‘report’ and opening the way to just put up a cute picture. Then I thought of something to write, but I went ahead and left ‘Blogging’ up to keep the pressure down and thus it is that we now have Weekend Hound (or Cat) Blogging:

I’ve heard that greyhounds have very accurate internal clocks due to the regimented life they live in the concentration camps… er… kennels at the tracks. You know, early to bed, early to rise makes a hound faster and smarter and postpones his demise. Well, since Phoebe is a retired fired racer, I’ve been watching since she came to us for evidence of this internal clock. Well, it started going off this week. 4:30 am. Usually, I get up at 5:30 and Phoebe follows me out of the bedroom and joins me for breakfast and a trip to the backyard (for her, not me).

This week, however, every morning at 4:30am we hear the squeek-squeek-squeek of a squeeky chew toy growing louder and louder as it begs for mercy. After that comes the beating of her weedwhacker tail against the wall until finally she starts running laps around the room. The room is small – at least for a speeding greyhound – so bouncing off the walls is more like it.

Every morning this week.

4:30am.

It’s apparent that Phoebe’s internal clock ticks just fine, but somewhere in that pointy little canine head it seems that a switch has been made in which the internal clock has skipped ahead an hour. A friend suggested that she has perhaps switched to greyhound daylight time.

Or perhaps it’s just youth. She turned two in November, which is pretty much adult for most dogs, but according to my copy of Retired Racing Greyhounds for Dummies, (She came with the book, can you believe it? Adopt a dog and get a book. What’s not to love?) greys mature more slowly:

Because greyhounds don’t mature until they are about three years of age, a two-year-old retired racer may still be very much a puppy and quite full of himself. He may need more exercise and supervision than a dog who is just a few months or a year older.

I wondered if perhaps she needs a bit more exercise. So I took her for an especially long walk on Saturday night, but it only helped a little bit. She started working over the squeeky toy at 4:37. Better, but we still need to adjust that clock.

[saveagrey]

Sweaters arrived just a day late for The Blizzard of 2005… er… The Ice Storm of 05…no wait…The Day It Got Below 20 and Some Bridges and Overpasses Froze of 2005:

For you non-greyhound people out there, we’re not trying to humiliate our pups by dressing them up. They have no body fat to insulate themselves and so really do need sweaters when it gets cold, but even without sweaters, nobody froze. Phoebe (in red) revealed herself to be something of a scientist, carefully scratching, licking, sniffing and nosing every patch of ice on the back porch in an effort to determine the meaning of it all.

Daphne (in blue), who is a little less intellectual, displayed her alter-ego “dangerous greyhound” and kept trying to run full-speed across the icy patio and up the frozen stairs to the glass backdoor. Happily no bones were broken, and some cat litter on the steps helped her keep traction.

When the sweaters arrived, they tried them on and even though the weather had warmed considerably, the dogs seemed to enjoy wearing them. I suppose they know when they look good.

By the way, the sweaters came from Classy Canine, and they’re great.

[saveagrey]

With a large tip of the cyber hat to Ironicus Maximus whose Friday Hound Blogging is one of my favorite traditions, and in the interests of being organized, I now commence with a regular feature: The Weekend Hound (or Cat or Hounds and Cat) Report, wherein the adventures of my furry friends will be related. If it seems odd to start a weekend feature on a Monday, then you’re probably more organized than me.

Phoebe and Daphne took their first walk together yesterday. Phoebe loves the idea of walks, but when the paw hits the pavement it really freaks her out (as described here). Daphne, on the other hand, is terrified and runs away when anything even resembling a leash begins to jingle. Sometimes, however, she is tricked by the large bipedal apes with whom she lives and as happened yesterday found herself out in public. My wife took Phoebe, I took Daphne, and we strolled down the street with each hound demonstrating her own approach to facing a dangerous world:

Daphne, who walks quickly knowing that it will be over soon, bases her strategy on the fact that if she walks fast They will not be able to get her.

Phoebe believes They can only see movement and so walks painfully slowly in the hopes that she will be mistaken for a large black and white rock.

When together, Phoebe likes to stay close to Daphne and so will actually pick up the pace. Last night’s walk, took only half the time that a normal walk with Phoebe alone takes, though we covered the same distance. I have resigned myself to the fact that Daphne will never like walks, but I think Phoebe will really enjoy them as she comes out of her shell as evidenced by the fact that she always wants to go.

[saveagrey]