Brother Cane

I noticed that Riley's brother, Bob's Cane, has entered the SEGA adoption program. His ears appear to be a little less ugly than hers :-). It is exciting to have contact with one of my hound's littermates. Maybe his adopter will stay in touch. I had hoped that more of Reagan's family would keep in touch, but I have only had contact with the adopter of the red male (47A). The foster person emailed me and put me in touch with the adopter and I sent them all of the puppy pictures I had. I also contacted the adopter of the mother, Task Spring Buds, but my emails have either been spammed or ignored. If I were the owner of a dam, I would certainly want to keep tabs on the pups, but that is just me.

In the latest bunch to arrive at SEGA, it appears from the profiles that I have 3 to look at for my adopter, Ray (including Bob's Cane). Hopefully one will be perfect for Ray and the other 2 are much more mild manner than they were on profiling day. All 3 were described as having an intense toy drive and extremely food motivated. I will try to look at them in the next couple of days.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I feel so blessed and I am so thankful for everything I have. I feel spoiled at times. It is so nice to live in a free country where my biggest worry each day is "What's for dinner? (because there is so much to choose from) and "What should I do with the dogs?" Life is so easy.

I am so blessed to have a wonderful family and husband.

We are all healthy for the most part. The dogs are healthy.

I am so thankful to have a great job with super nice bosses and flex time. I am very lucky I have time each day to work with the greyhounds and to have fun loving, training, and competiting them.

I am thankful for all the friends I have met through greyhounds and dog training. I am happy I live in Georgia and in an area that offers so much to do with the dogs.

I am thankful for having had two heart dogs thus far in my lifetime. I just could not ask for more. I hope you are all are enjoying the same.

Valedictorian

And last, but not least, Katie would be the valedictorian in high school. Intelligent, hard working, and motivated, Katie would graduate head of her class.

Katie would be any parent's dream. She would keep her room clean, help around the house, and do anything asked of her.





She would be involved in lots of extra-curricular activities. Katie would be a team player and very good at sports.

She would be a wonderful older sister......

And a wonderful younger sister as well.

Just the most perfect, wonderful greyhound ever.

Stuck In Bed

I woke up this morning to find Katie stuck in bed.... literally. She was unusually polite for a morning of sleeping in. When I got out of bed, I found that she had poked her head through a torn blanket that had a hole perfectly sized for a greyhound head and neck. No doubt she was snuggly warm.

Balancing Act

Here is what Riley is working on. She is a wild and wiggly girl. With so much movement, she is more at risk for falling of dogwalks and teeters. On this exercise, I am click and treating for having all 4 feet on the board. I want her to walk across it. I want her to be able to turn around and sit on it without falling off. I want her to be comfortable moving around on it and to know her job is to stick to the board no matter what she is doing.

Here is Riley doing some low teeter work. To minimize the amount of pivot, I have the far end of the board land on a table. Over time the teeter gets taller and the table gets lower. When you do not see us in the frame, I am rewarding Riley for not putting herself on the obstacle without me telling her first. I want her to wait until instructed to do so.

Here is a clip of Riley's weave pole progress. She knows to travel down the middle of the poles now.

Prior To Crash and Burn

Last week, I made an attempt to video by myself. These are videos of Reagan doing jump sequences with lots of crosses. Crosses are basically when I have to change sides with Reagan so we can head in another direction. Front crosses happen in front of the dog. Rear crosses happen behind the dog.


Reagan's jumping is coming along nicely. She is keeping most of the rails up and is crossing nicely. Much better jumper than Riley!!! :-)


Sorry the videos are far away and unedited.

Crash and Burn

I am beginning to think that Reagan is accident prone. I had the hounds at the training building on Sunday to teach a private obedience lesson. There is an agility field out back with sand footing. It was cold and the hounds needed to let loose. Reagan was running around and fetching her toy. At one point she ran past me up onto the concrete. When she circled around and turned back towards the sand, her back feet slipped out from under her. She scrapped up her back feet, toes, and her right stifle. She started to bleed quite a bit and was leaving a significant trail of blood as she walked. Dang it! It was one of those days where it was freezing cold, so I could not clean her up outside. I put her in the van, grabbed the other two, and tossed all my stuff in the van. I got her home in the bath tub. Got her cleaned up and all of the sand out of the wounds. Katie is a much better patient than Reagan. Of course, what do you expect from the most perfect greyhound ever? Reagan was uncooperative, but I managed to bandage her feet. Now the dilemma.... what do I do with the 19-month old brat for the next couple of days? Watch TV? Read a book? Checkers? Scrabble anyone? Unfortunately, that is not going to work for Reagan.

New Van Pictures

We picked up the new van yesterday.

Despite Stephen spending half the day at the dealership doing paperwork already, we still had another hour of signing around before we could take it home. So glad Stephen did the hard part. Thanks, Snookums.

This new van is a huge splurge for Stephen and I. Neither of us has ever owned a new car before. In fact the 1998 Mazda I drive to work was purchased just 3 years ago.

There is still some work to be done. The radio/CD player has to be installed. The factory version cost about $100 more than the much nicer one we purchased. We are also having the insides sprayed with Line-X (spray-on truck bedliner) to reduce road noise and provide some insultation.

The new van has a sliding door instead of two swing out doors.

The sliding door should be nice for when we are in a tight parking spot.

ARM RESTS!!!! The power seat is also very nice. Full size vans are not built for 5' 3" females. Its nice to finally be able to adjust the seat in all directions.

The van also came with a lot of gadgets we did not expect - compass, gauge that tells us how many miles are left in tank, head and tail lights that come on automatically depending on the amount of light outside, tire pressure sensor, oil change sensor, and other gauges I cannot remember what they do yet.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Our new greyhound bus has arrived!!! The reason this news is so exciting is that we ordered the new van on June 20th..... almost 5 months ago. You would have thought we were adopting this vehicle from China, but alas it was born in Missouri on Halloween day. With all the worries with American carmakers, you would have thought General Motors would be eager to produce a vehicle for someone standing there with money to buy it..... But no, lets produce vehicles we might be able to sell. Do you really think its a good idea for the government to bail out such companies? I digress.

My love of cargo vans for traveling with dogs has been well established. I bought my first cargo van in 2002 after Todd persuaded me to purchase the windowless version (instead of a passenger van). I bet you don't remember that, Todd. He explained that I did not want windows because they create a greenhouse effect. He was right and I fell in love with my cargo van. However, this time around we wanted to upgrade and add a few features the car, mini van, and SUV drivers take for granted.... such things as a color other than white (sandstone), power adjustable seat, cloth interior, CD player with USB port, power locks & windows, cruise control, rear heating and air conditioning, and ARM RESTS! I cannot wait to rest my arms on the arm rests!

Unfortunately, pimped out cargo vans are not in high demand and cannot be found at any dealership in the United States of America. We had to order a new one. So join Stephen and I in welcoming our new van to our family. Pictures will be coming soon.

Wannabe

I do not know Riley as well as Reagan and Katie, but I would guess that she would be a wannabe in high school.....one of those girls that tries too hard to fit in and to be popular. She would not be especially pretty with that freckled faced and bad hair. An attempt at the latest hair style would only turn into curly bangs that just get bigger and fly in all directions.





Riley's excited and hyper personality would get her into trouble in social situations. She would probably talk very fast and later regret half of what she said. She would greet everyone with a hug. She would bite her nails when she is excited (evident by her leash chewing).

Riley would invite the other girls over for sleep overs......

... And share her toys. The popular girls would break rip up her toys when her back is turned.

Riley looks pretty goofy when she jogs and would be made fun of by the other kids when it was time to run the mile. She would be picked last for teams in P.E.

Lucky for me, Riley is just a sweet, little greyhound that doesn't care if we tease her.

Popular Girl

If Reagan was a teenager in high school, I would imagine her to be one of the popular girls. You know the type.... petite, beautiful, and a little stuck up.

Her bouncy nature would be perfect for cheer leading. She would love to show off her assets.

She would insist on wearing only the latest styles and name brand labels.........

And throw a nasty tantrum if she did not get her way.

She would probably refuse to smile in family pictures with a wicked little look on her face. "Are we almost done yet?" she would say.

She would probably be a flirt and hang around the boys too much.

Thank goodness Reagan is just a wonderful greyhound.

Listen Up

Ears have little to do with speed, so racing greyhounds have some of the most interesting ears found on any breed of dog. The varieties are about as diverse as the colors. Lets review the various types.

Picture Perfect Ears - Picture perfect ears speak for themselves. They are a matching pair and appear as if they belong on the same greyhound head. They are alert and pricked for all photography sessions with minimum solicitation from squeakies and funny noises.

Foxy Ears - Sometimes these are mistaken for picture perfect ears. While cute for photos, these ears stand higher than picture perfect ears.

Freak Flags - Freak flags warn of impending doom. These ears belong to Stacker and we can usually assume that it is raining or a plane has flown over the house when we see these flags flying.

Bowtie or Farfalle Ears - If I was not a vegetarian, I would probably want to open a jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce and nibble on those goofy ears.

Captive Orca Fin Ears - Recall the orca movie called Free Willie and you will remember the limp dorsal fin tip that flopped over to one side instead of standing straight up. Reason unknown, this occurs in killer whales living in captivity. Riley's right ear is blessed (or cursed) with this trait. Maybe it would stand straight up if she was a wild greyhound.

Neutered Feral Cat Ears - Due to Riley's captive orca fin ear, from the front she appears to have the ears of a neutered feral cat. When caring for a feral cat colony, the most important thing to do is to spay and neuter the cats. However, once released you have no way of knowing which cats you have neutered. That is unless you have the vet remove the tip of one ear, so you have a quick and easy way to determine whether the cat in your humane trap is neutered or not.

Batman Ears - These flaps speak for themselves.

Curly Ears - Again, Riley's ears are able to demonstrate more weirdness.

Luckily for the AKC greyhounds, their breeders pay more attention to ear conformation. While less entertaining fodder for blogs, the AKC siblings tend to have more attractive, breed type ears.