So I’ve had one bunny rubber stamp that I’ve had for maybe 8 years, but — how wonderful is the Internet?! — there’s a great store on eBay that I just found called Rubber Hedgehog and it’s got all sorts of wonderful animal stamps. If you do any kind of crafting (and stamping is about the easiest craft you can take up if you’re intimidated), go there and get lots of great supplies!
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Highlights of the schedule (in addition to all the vendors slated to display) are ghost tours at night, a singing and dancing music and comedy greyhound review, greyhound costume contests, parades, a greyt speed run, a fun run for greys, and a blessing of the hounds. Check out the pix of years past! We can’t wait to meet new friends, buy a nice springtime martingale collar, and play with other greyhound lovers and their pups! We’ll post pictures after the event. TGP really hit the nail on the head with this wonderfully produced video! Enjoy! So I just played the video in the last post of Jacoby rooing and he was cocking his head all funny when his Daddy was rooing, then when he heard me chime in and himself start to howl, he rooed right along with the music. One of the unexpected joys of having a greyhound is having him sing to me. Sometimes it turns into barking, but it’s mainly singing. And I think it’s lovely! Bandit and SweetPea had a very normal Valentine’s Day. Bandit got a few extra cuddles, but all was normal on the kitty and bunny front.  Fonya, John Boy and Jacoby take a break Jacoby, on the other hand, had a very busy day with me. First, we went to our first Greyt Fun meetup. I thought that maybe it would just be he and I walking in Callahan State Park, as Jini had told me she may not be able to come with Fonya (who I deemed Jacoby’s Valentine). But it turns out that Karen and Mitch showed up unexpectedly (LOVE when that happens!), so Jacoby met their John Boy and it turned out to be a party! John Boy had run 100 races (won 15 of them) and just retired in November ‘09, so he’s a newbie to the spoiled rotten lifestyle, but apparently taking to it very well. So we walked in Callahan for about an hour and we talked about our greyhounds, which was a lot of fun. John Boy and Jacoby, both being boys, had a peeing contest to see who could pee on the most things. I’m not sure who won, but they had fun competing! After our walk, it was off to some pet stores in Framingham/Natick to post some flyers advertising our new playgroup. PetSmart actually didn’t have any Community Bulletin board, but PetCo and Pet World both did and were very nice about me pinning a bunch of flyers up.
So that was a lot of jumping in and out of the back of my Highlander. But also a lot of opportunities for Jacoby to pee on things right outside the store, where countless other dogs have peed before. So that was fun for him. Then we were going to go home, but on the way we passed right by Butter Worth Park, where Paul had placed a geocache. I thought it was a great opportunity to check on the dryness/winter steadfastness of said cache, so we parked and headed across the park to the trees, Moto Droid in hand, GPSr and camera hanging from my belt loops. I was so geeked out; Steve Ballmer would have been impressed. We’re almost to the trees when an unleashed black lab comes running at full tilt up to Jacoby (unhindered by the weak “come back here” by his people) and slams on the brakes a few feet away. Jacoby freezes, trying to instill calm in this frantic dog. So sniff sniff happens. Labby gets all up in my boy’s junk, but Jacoby’s okay with that. Then out of nowhere, the lab decides to (are you sitting down?) mount Jacoby, which is frankly tough, because the lab isn’t a huge dog and Jacoby kinda is. The instant this happens, my marshmallow of a 76-pound dog turns surprisingly fierce and I don’t even have time to get in the way before Jacoby’s growled and warning-snapped his way out of trouble. This is the second time I’ve ever heard Jacoby growl (I got a growl from him once for taking his Greenie away in mid-chew, but I body blocked him and cut that right out) and first I’ve seen him snap at anything.  I was all tuckered out after my big day! I was so proud of my boy. He really handled it beautifully. He was nice until it was clear Labby wasn’t going to be, then he wouldn’t take any guff, dog-style. Needless to say, Labby ran back to his family. I praised Jacoby all the way to the cache, which was probably another 25 yards or so. Jacoby certainly kept an eye on where that dog was the whole time we were in the park. Labby actually ran at us again when we were on our way to the car, but I positioned myself between the two dogs, and Labby decided about 20 feet away to make a circle and run back to safety. I bet he was thinking, “If the dog is that mean and the person praises him, how mean must the person be?!” So good dog owners and bad, Jacoby had seen them all on Sunday. And he had enough excitement for a whole week. “Home” sounded like a really good destination when we got back in the car. Alas, he is a dog. So the next time I get my keys and tell him he’s going somewhere with me, he’ll be just as excited. God love canines and their endless sense of adventure! He may be a lazy dog now, but Jacoby comes from great stock! The good thing about greyhounds is that they are tracked very carefully, even the pups who don’t race. They all have tattoos in their ears identifying them from birth. Greyhound-data.com lists every (I think) greyhound, their pedigree, their racing stats, etc. We knew Jacoby (born as M’s Goodstuff) never ran a race. So we learned today that Jacoby is a Florida boy. And it looks like his littermates didn’t really race too well either,despite having pretty successful parents. His dad dad, Big Boy Baggio, ran 133 races and won 85 times. Quite impressive, and then it’s no mystery why he was chosen to sire 137 puppies! (That’s not a typo.) Jacoby’s mom, Flying Limon, ran 66 races and won 6 times. Then had only 14 puppies in 2 litters, Jacoby’s on November 29, 2004, and a more successful racing litter on January 19, 2006. Of Jacoby’s three brothers and two sisters, only two of them ever raced. His brother M’s Whole Hog, ran 7 races and came in 2nd only once (never won). His sister M’s Gravy Train ran 4 races and never did too well. However, Flying Limon can be proud of her second litter in the athletic arena — three of the eight pups she had with M’s Lucky Scott ran more than 10 races. (Scott himself won 26 races of the 134 he ran. And produced 44 puppies.) In fact, Jacoby’s half brother, M’s Big Buddy, won 8 of the 133 races he ran. Buddy’s sister, M’s Luckylouella, has won 8 out of 59 races she’s been in. M’s Ready Freddy, another brother of this litter, won 8 out of the 31 races he ran. Thanks to the Internet and some incredibly-kept records, we can find out all about our beloved greys. But all I need to know about Jacoby doesn’t come from a stat site. It all comes from the way he wakes from a nap, stretches, and heads over to me to nuzzle his huge head in my lap. Well, Jacoby had no idea what we were up to when we walked him, fed him, and then suited him up again for another walk. But he got a clue something good was happening when he hopped in the back of our Highlander Hybrid. Then he got confused again when we drove a half hour into Jamaica Plain, but he was so excited when he saw that we were going for a walk with over a dozen other greyhounds! Greyhound Adventures is a fun time, even in the frigid cold of a Sunday morning in Boston. We all stayed out for about an hour, and all the pups had a greyt time! So we found a baseball field up the street from us and Jacoby’s in love with the freedom he gets when he runs the bases. Check him out: I want to take him every day, but he’ll probably only be able to handle a coupla times a week. Not that Jacoby ever ran a race, but when greys race, they run less than half a mile only about once or twice a week. So I think we have to work our way up in frequency. He just has so much fun taking off! He looks like a swimmer doing butterfly when he really gets going. It’s beautiful.
Thanks for being a greyhound ambassador, Jasmine! Keep up the good work! Jacoby the greyhound, unfortunately, is not adjusting very well at all to our house. He’s anxious and unsettled and can’t find anywhere to relax. You can see what I mean here:
The first night (Sunday night) I was going to have Jacoby sleep in a 2nd-floor bedroom with a baby gate to keep him in. Well, I gave him a good 30 minutes to settle down and he just wouldn’t. I came down to see that he was trying to chew through the baby gate and there were shards of wood all around. My poor boy!!! So I brought him and his comforter and his blankie and his little squeaky toy and the baby gate upstairs and set him up in the middle room of the master suite on the 3rd floor. He’s not yet in the bedroom, but he’s okay with being 20 feet away from me. I’m waiting for Bandit the kitty to get a bit more used to him so as to not feel displaced. She feels our bedroom (specifically our bed) was a sanctuary for her, so I don’t want to mess that up for her. And SweetPea the bunny and Jacoby are doing great together. Pea’s staying in her condo with the door closed and only gets nervous when Jacoby thinks I’m handing out treats to her — he comes close to the cage and seems to want whatever I’m handing out. I can’t give him the raisins I give her, but I make sure to give him lots of love and I think that’s his best treat right now. But other than that, the big boy isn’t making her skittish at all and he’s only noticing her moving around, etc., peripherally. He’s sure getting his exercise! We’re walking him like crazy and he’s climbing the 3 flights of stairs in our house like a champ. He’s very sensitive to how we walk, and how fast. He’s learning “stay” at curbs before crossing streets, he already knows his new name, he’s learning “slow” when we come to ice and can’t walk fast over it, and he’s already got his favorite spots to “go” on our little street (which he’s doing with admirable regularity!). I’m trying to teach him what “home” means (and where it is). The first day, we went for a 3-mile walk, and a 1-mile walk. Yesterday, we went for a 2-mile walk. Today we’ll walk about 1.5 miles to the vet’s office. We’re going mainly to get him a heartworm prescription. Yesterday, I got him a town license and an ID tag at PetSmart. So he’s got more jewelry, which jangle together in a happy way from his tag collar. We got a new washer and dryer yesterday, so he got to supervise that. Even made friend with our plumber, Jeff. At PetSmart yesterday afternoon, we were going to buy chewies and a few balls (I want to see if I can get him interested in toys), and he was making friends with all the people, but very wary of the dogs. Especially the little dogs! I don’t know if he’s afraid he’ll step on them or if he’s just a cream puff (probably the 2nd one!), but it was too funny! We got him weighed on their scale: 74.4 pounds, I think. And I had to measure him for a coat, so he’s 28″ long (from base of neck to base of tail) and 28″ tall from floor to top of shoulder. I wonder if all greys are so symmetrical? He’s a love. We’ve been having fun together and he’s right near me at all times. He cries if he’s on a different floor than me. But he settles right down on a couch in the library when I leave the house without him, so that doesn’t seem to be a problem. The couch is right by a window that overlooks the driveway, so he can see when I come home and is right by the door to greet me when I open it. He bounces up and down and gets so excited that last night I had to go for a few hours and I had to make sure I didn’t speed home because I was so much anticipating his reaction when I got there! In short, he’s our perfect dog. We are so glad we waited nearly 3 months to do the right research and look for just the right dog. He’s completely and forever loved by us. And he seems to share the feeling, too.
We met Jacoby (now called Gary) last night — he came by our house with Lindsay and Agnes, some volunteers with We Adopt Greyhounds. We tested him with SweetPea and Bandit. Jacoby sniffed Pea a bit then was kinda afraid of her the rest of the night, while she tried to make friends with him, even walked under him and between his front paws! Bandit hissed at him like she was gonna attack, but there’s not a mean bone in her body, so it’s all an act. He shied away from both girls and wasn’t fixated on anything except getting some lovin’ from us humans. He’s a prince of a dog. Just a sweetheart above all else. He loves being around his people, or any people, really. He’s very interested in making new friends and would rather be near people than basically anywhere else. He’s going to be 5 years old this month. He’s VERY tall, even for a greyhound. He’s lived in a house before (that house had a kitty, too), so he’s awesome on stairs, completely housebroken, etc. All things that greys who come straight from a track aren’t good at. He’s brindle with white toes and a white bit on the tip of his tail, like he dunked it in a can of paint by accident. He’s gorgeous! I can’t wait for you to meet him! See the rest of his pix from last night on our Flickr gallery: We’ll be picking up our new pup from his foster home probably Sunday, 12/6. He’s named after Red Sox center fielder and Wonderkid (w/ the most stolen bases in the MLB this past year with 64) Jacoby Ellsbury, whom we’re both kinda in love with… So I figured out (with the advice of a few greyhound-owning friends) that I really need an organization that fosters the animals, that is, gets to know each “dogality” really well. Like I said before, I really can’t have a new pup going for SweetPea or Bandit. Also, since it is the “first” (Paul goes, “First?! How many are we planning on getting?!”) greyhound we’re getting and that adjustment will be big enough, I also think it’s a plus for a dog to know how to climb up stairs, live in a home, etc., which they don’t know right from the track. Fostering teaches them all these wonderful things (so we don’t have to). I know of only two organizations that foster their greyhounds before adoption in New England. Both seem like really terrific options for me. One of them is Greyhound Welfare (based in the Chesapeake Bay area, but also have a branch of operations in New England) and the other is We Adopt Greyhounds, which I found through GreyTalk. I’m working with both of these organizations right now to see if there’s a grey out there who may fit with our home. Do you know of any others? If so, please comment.
Something about greyhounds has me captivated. They seem majestic and graceful and sweet and laid back and fun. I’ve known a grey or two in my life (Pharaoh was an incredibly loving dog), but I’m definitely more filled with questions than with answers at this point. Now, you may think adding a sighthound to a house with a prey animal and a shy cat is insane, but I think that if I can bond an unneutered bunny boy (Hops) to three spayed bunny girls (Ariel, Kayla and SweetPea) and have them live in peace, I can pretty much do anything with animals. Not to mention the intro of the cat (predator much?) to a mix with three bunnies (Kayla, Hops and SweetPea), two of whom became immobile (read: helpless to run from said predator) during her early residence in the house. No incidents occurred at all between the cat and the bunnies. Now, you may think I just got lucky, that Bandit would run from a fly if it flew towards her (and you’d be right, my friend), but I’d also like to think life is peaceful with my zoo because I introduced them right and took my time and let each of them know what was to be expected of them. So I definitely need more information on the subject.
So, my questions are: Are greys okay with shy cats (Bandit) and bunnies (SweetPea)? Also, do greys need to run or are a few good walks a day okay for them? If you have any advice on either of those questions, PLEASE comment on this post or on GreyTalk.com! |
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