BOA Environmental Fair

        We went down to Richmond this weekend to the Bank of America Environmental Fair. Jason works for BOA. After Jason and Trina got Dana, one of his coworkers, Vashti adopted Logan from our group. Vashti ran the fair, and VAGA was invited. We dressed the kids in hats and collars and went around meeting and greeting. Here is a shot of some of the greys with the clown at the fair. We were there close to four hours, and the kids were tired.

        We went back to Trina’s afterwards. The kids love to run around their back yard. The first pic is of Stella and Winston posing in the back yard. Winston loves to stay with us when his parents are out of town. I think he misses being around other greyhounds, and we always have plenty of grey-friends for him to visit with.

In the next shot, the kids are chasing Shiloh around the yard. Trina looks like she is about to become a casualty of the chase.

In the last pic, Trina is kissing on Dana while Shiloh is laying next to her. A proud mommy and her two girls.

Dogball & Halfway House

        Who says greyhounds take up lots of space. Curled up properly, we could easily fit half a dozen on our couch. Here is Stella showing the proper form for maximum use of space. Quite odd, since she usually likes to claim the entire couch and spread out for maximum coverage.

        Does the second picture look familiar? Same angle, different dogs. This time it is Kris (on phone on greyhound business), Lucas, Shirley, Winston (babysitting for the weekend), Kay, Parker on the couch, Stella, and Teemu (overnight foster) in the middle dog bed. As usual, Minnie is out of the picture. She loves to sleep in her crate. Eight in all. Just another day at the Park household. I have reminded Stella that this is all her doing. I wanted a greyhound and got a lifestyle :)

RooFest 'n Grey Blog Links

        I finally managed to have the camera ready when the kids decided to go in ‘roo’ mode. The two husky mix dogs next door started to howl. That always get my kids all riled up. They like to go out and show ‘em what roo’ing is all about. Here you can see Kay (fawn), Lucas (white/brown), Minnie (white/black), and Stella (brindle) howling like a fire truck was passing by. Parker the black SPCA dog is looking around to see what all the roo’ing is about. This was followed by a few quick laps around the yard for good measure.
        Here are a couple of grey blog links that I keep up with. Check ‘em out. The first is Needle Noses. This blog is about fostering ex-racers in Queensland, Australia. I think Australia would be a cool place to live. If we ever decided to move there, at least we know we could keep fostering :) The next link is Raven The Black Grey. This blog follows the adventures of Raven, a black greyhound, from the first-greyhound perspective. See what antics she’s been up to lately.

SPCA Adoptathon & Meet 'n Greet

        What did I do with my weekends before the greyhounds? Was there such a time? We still have 3 fosters along with our 3 kids. I went to an SPCA Adoptathon in Prince William County on Saturday with Debbie. It was an all day affair, and we got the afternoon shift. Kris went to a Hokie night game. She didn’t end up getting back home till 2:30am. I was going to take all three fosters, but Minnie and Kay are now spoken for, so that just left Shirley. So we took Stella and Shirley as ambassadogs. The first pic is of Stella in her witch’s hat at the adoptathon.

        On Sunday, we did the Meet ‘n Greet in downtown Fredericksburg. We always get a good turnout for this one. Kay and Minnie’s new family came to visit them. They are renovating their kitchen and are waiting till it’s finished before adding greys to their family. So we will have them for a couple more weeks. There was quite a bit of interest in Shirley at both the Adoptathon yesterday and today at the Meet ‘n Greet. Hopefully we will find a good home for her soon. The second pic is of Minnie, Kay, Stella, Shirley, and Winston. Winston looks like he should be playing golf or drinking a Guinness with that hat on.

More Fosters and Big Ol' Greyhound Party

        I was on the road in Boston this week. I came back to find that we now had 3 fosters (Shirley, Kay, Minnie) and babysitting Winston along with the our usual crew. That makes 6 greys and Parker in the house. A party by itself. The first pic is of the greys relaxing. Parker and Minnie are not in the pic. Hard to get all of them together to take a good pic.         We had a big ol’ greyhound party on Saturday. Quite a few recent adopters and people from Richmond stopped by. There were 30+ greys and Parker, Shiloh, Dante & Murphy. The pic shows people and dogs in the backyard socializing. We only had to muzzle a few of the greys who were getting a bit snippy. There were two distinct groups of dogs. There was the backyard group who spent their time sniffing the outdoors and tearing around the yard. The other group thought it much nicer to find a nice soft bed or couch inside and have people pet them and tell them how sweet they are. This is the first party that I did not work the grill. With this many people and dogs, it was just easier to pick up platters from Chick Fil-A and Costco. Quite yummy. Less work for me, and more time to socialize and enjoy the party. It got quite cold after the sun went down. For the diehard party animals, we moved the wine and dog beds down to the patio and sat by a roaring fire in the pagoda. A good time was had by all.
        Jason and Trina spent the night with their 3 kids and Goddess their foster. So that was 11 dogs total upstairs for the night. Surprisingly, they all settled in and we all got a good night’s rest. The last pic is of Jason and Trina laying with the dogs this morning. You should be able to discern 7 greys and Parker and Dante. During feeding time this morning, we got a glimpse of what it must be like to at feeding time in a kennel. When we go down to our regular crew, I’m sure the house will feel quite empty. Not that Stella, Lucas or Parker will mind. And I’m sure the kitties who are currently hiding out in the basement are counting down the days.

Florida vacation

        We drove from Va down to North Redington Beach just south of Clearwater Beach with Jason & Trina. Took about 14 hours from the house which included picking them up and several rest stops including dinner. It was a very quiet resort. Just fine by us old folks :) Mostly we sat on beach with fruity drinks. Monday night we went to the Tampa greyhound track. We bet $5 on Roar Katie Mac to win. We called Debbie so she could listen to her ‘granddaughter’ win. She won by close to 3 lengths. The girls were quite emotional about their first greyhound race experience.
        On Wed, we went to SeaWorld, and it was much better than I expected. Less amusement park, and much more aquarium than I expected. I guess b/c it was in Orlando, I thought it was connected to Disney somehow. But it’s an Anheuser-Busch theme park, so Bud and Bud Light on tap everywhere. Another baby Shamu had been born a few weeks ago, so they gave an abbreviated show. The dolphin show was like the ‘O’ water show at the Bellagio but with dolphins and whales. We had no idea that walruses and manatees were so big. That night for dinner, we had good sushi at Ren Get-su.
        On Thur, we were off to the airport to rent a Dodge Caravan since it has ‘sto ‘n go’ seats. Rental car agencies rarely guarantee a specific car, but the agent was nice enough to hold one for us. With the seats down and blankets on top, we were ready to start picking up some dogs. We stopped by the GPA/GO rescue kennel and picked up Clayton and Play (now Jasmine). They have been together for a few years, and we were lucky enough to find an adopter who requested two dogs. We stopped by the race kennels to see the other six dogs we would be picking up before heading back on Fri. We took Clay & Jasmine back to our hotel, and then we headed to the Sanford-Orlando track to see some more greyhound racing. It was too dark to get any good action pics of the dogs running.
        On Fri, we took Clay and Jasmine to the track kennels to pick up the other six. They seemed a little scared that we were going to drop them off there. We picked up New York, Xtra Kick, Gina, Goddess, Minnie the Moocher, and Kay Kiowa PSO. PSO was not on the original list... Jason and Trina drove the minivan which easily fit seven. Kris and I took Minnie in the sedan since she had a injured tail, and we didn’t want others stepping on it. The weather was nice when we left. During our 12+ hour drive back to Richmond, the weather turned cold and rainy somewhere in North Carolina. Needless to say we were tired when finally reached Richmond. We spent the night at Trina’s.
        Sat, we dropped off Clay and Jasmine at their new forever home. That left us with six greys to take to the vet in Purcellville. It was late afternoon by the time we made it back home. The roundtrip for us was just over 2000+ miles. Our babies were happy to see us. As were Hannah and Shirley our fosters. As was Aubry since she had been watching them for us all week. Good to be back home.