Another greyhound weekend!

        Where does the weekend go? On Saturday, we took Hope up to Herndon for a home visit. We ended up leaving her there as a foster-to-adopt. The family instantly fell in love with her, so I don’t think Hope (now Amber) will be coming back. She is such a sweetie. We will miss her. She and Lucas were very tight while she was here. Lucas will miss his girlfriend. The family had a 3 year old boxer/greyhound mix named Allie. Allie had been in a funk for a couple of months since their Dalmatian died, but was jumping up and down and happy to meet Hope. Hope became attached to their 8 year old daughter during the visit. I think Hope is a good fit for this family.
        On Sunday, Kris and Debbie went to Staunton to adopt out Sadie. Sadie was a return from a couple of months ago. She has been fostered in Richmond, and her foster mom also came to the adoption. The pic is of Sadie with her new daddy. He is opening up a restaurant later this year, and we look forward to trying it out. If don’t make it through the Siemens acquisition, I wonder if he is looking for a sous-chef?

Coming out of my shell

Hi, I’m Hope. I’ll be writing this entry as my foster daddy is too lazy to write about my progress. I’ve been here about a week and a half. I’m enjoying my stay and getting used to to all the new things of being off the track. The food is much better here, and I get to eat as much as I want. I’ve gained a few pounds (~60lb), but I’m still not nearly as big as Stella (75lb) or Lucas (90+). Fatties. I’ve learned how to do stairs and cockroach on a dog bed. Retirement is fun. I’m still stuck on my kennel schedule, so I used to wake everyone up around 4:30am by squeaking the hedgehog stuffie. They now put all the stuffies away at bedtime, so I wake everyone up by walking and rubbing my head along the side of the bed. Bet it feels like an earthquake to them. I’d like to get on the bed, but there isn’t any space left for me. That Stella sure is a bed hog. My foster daddy is always trying to get pictures of me, but that big black thing he puts up to his eye is scary. So he doesn’t have too many good pics of me. But this pic is of me and Lucas tugging on a branch that fell in the yard. This whole running around the yard thing is great. Now that I’m a doggie door pro, I can go out whenever the fancy strikes me. Parker Dog usually alerts us if there is anything of interest outside. Parker says there is nothing going on outside right now, so I think I will go grab a bed and take a nap. Bye.

Record-breaking Fredericksburg Meet 'n Greet

A hot humid summer day did not deter the Fredericksburg area VAGA volunteers from coming out in full force. We had a record-breaking 26 greyhounds; and Parker Dog. The greys were Earl, Dana, Leah, Sidney, Roxy, Tempest, Stella, Lucas, Hope, Jake, Sophie, Neko, Sandy, Allie, Winston, Prince, Princess, Louisa May, Rita Mae, Tipper, Queen, Thunder, Steve, Diablo, Lady Belle, and Critter. Meet ‘n Greet’s are as much a social occasion for greyhounds and their owners as it is to educate the public about greyhounds and what great pets they make. Seeing how much fun everyone was having, we are planning our next big greyhound party. Hope everyone can make it.

Happy Birthday Stella!!!

Today is Stella’s birthday. Happy 5th birthday!!! Here she is pondering how quickly the years have gone by. Seems like just yesterday she was running at the track. Now she’s a master cockroacher on the couch. Your mommy and daddy love you, sweetie!

Double Adoption and Babysitting

I came home from being on the road last week to find two foster dogs (November and Hope), a previous foster (Maggie aka LnL Lindsay) that was adopted and that we were babysitting for the weekend, and one foster (Julie) had already been adopted out midweek. We had a high of six dogs spending the night. Kris makes fun of me for buying a new dog bed everytime we go to Costco, but they sure came in handy. Speaking of, Costco now has orthopedic (egg crate) dog beds now. Lucas loves it.

Here is November’s new family. She was adopted on Saturday. November is a very outgoing and loving girl. She was not phased by their 3 year old, and whirled her tail and gave them kisses when she found out she was going to her new forever home.

Here is a pic of Stella reliving her glory days and watching a greyhound race on tv. As you can see, the fosters are freshly off the track and don’t want to have anything to do with racing anymore.

Maggie is the daughter of Debbie’s Ally. She’s been with her new family for a couple of months. Her family went to New York for the weekend, so we were babysitting. She’s filled out and looks great now. Maggie is an only dog now, so she enjoyed being able to play with our guys.

Hope is currently our only foster left. She is a small shy girl with big doe eyes. She’s becoming more relaxed every day. I love to see how their personalities change once they figure out that their new job is to just look cute.

Eating From The Garden

I had not planned on having a garden this year. Currently I am growing grape tomatoes and cucumbers in various spots around the yard. I throw all of my vegetable trimmings in the composter, and I used this rich composted material instead of potting soil for spring plantings. Didn’t think the seeds would survive the winter cold. So instead of just geraniums and ornamental peppers, grape tomatoes and cucumbers popped up alongside them. Parker loves to eat grape tomatoes. I wasn’t sure how the greys would take to cucumbers. As you can see from this picture, Lucas finds cucumbers quite refreshing during the summer heat. So I will keep the garden going so my kids will have refreshing treats throughout the summer.