Amy's Adoption

Our one day foster Amy (Mesa Proud Mary) went to her new forever home in Richmond yesterday. She was truly a sweetie. Look at that face. And those ears. She’s a smart cookie. She learned stairs just by watching our guys do them. A self-confident girl, she relaxed quickly and was cockroaching on a dog bed in no time. Wish all our fosters were so easy. Here is a pic of her with her new family. With the quarantine in Florida now lifted, we will be getting a new batch of dogs coming up from Orlando at the end of the week.

Parker Dog is 7 Years Old!

Today is Parker’s birthday. He is well into middle-age at 7 years old. He got to eat a bit of bbq ribs, a corn on the cob, and kiwi for dessert. Actually, we were shucking the corn on the deck, and Lucas decided that it looked yummy. When we turned around, our 4 ears had mysteriously turned into 3 ears. Since it was Parker’s birthday, each of the kids got their own ear of corn. The picture is of Lucas enjoying his prize. Afterwards, we took a walk around the neighborhood. The weather wasn’t too oppressive today. They better enjoy the quiet now. Looks like we’ll be getting a foster dog (or 2) pretty soon.

Double Gate for the Dogs

The fence guys showed today, and within an hour, we had a second gate to the yard. This way, when dog guests come to see our kids, they can come in, close the first gate, and then open the gate to the yard. Just like the double gates at dogs parks. Now, at our cookouts when we have a dozen or more dogs coming and going, we won’t have to worry about dogs escaping. Guess we’ll have to plan another cookout soon to test it out :) Happy Bastille Day!

Tour de France hits the mountains

It’s been more than a week into the Tour de France, and they are finally into the mountains. Between OLN coverage and TiVo, I don’t have to miss any of it. The flat stages mostly consist of the peleton sticking together, and the sprinters duking it out in the last several hundred meters. Time differences are measured in seconds. I usually fast-forward through most of the middle part. Now that they are in the mountains (Pyrenees and Alps), the true contenders will be separated from the flat-stage sprinters. The time gaps will now be measured in minutes. On any given day, if your stage time is not within 10% of the winner’s time, you get dropped from the race. Ouch! Riding for 28 days of 100+ miles per day. I get tired just watching them. Maybe I will start saving up for a road race bike. $5000, a bright lycra jersey, and shaved legs, and I can pretend to be a Tour contender too :)

Website Pics updated!

        We had our monthly Meet ‘n Greet at the Glen Allen PetsMart on Saturday. We picked up Sadie on the way down. She is being returned after 8-9 months with her new family. I won’t get into all the reasons why she was returned, but it sounds like a combo of a treatable medical issue and the family just tiring of having a dog. This will be their third return to our group, so I’m thinking no more greys for them. She will stay with Trina while we figure things out and look for a new home for her. At the M&G were Sadie, Logan, Dana (w/ Shiloh & Dante), Jo, Stella & Lucas (w/ Parker), and Thunder came from 2 hrs away with his new family. Somehow I seem to attract the crazy ones. I was holding Stella, Lucas, Sadie and Parker as I was walking from the parking lot, and I get stopped by someone wanting to know if they were whippets. Lucas weighs 95lbs. A whippet? I don’t think so. Then I meet a lady who said she wanted a greyhound, but everytime one would try to sniff her and get petted, she would squeal and jump back. Hmm, No Greyhound For YOU!!! After the M&G, we all went back to Trina’s for drinks and watching the kids run around. They had just stood around for 3 hrs at the M&G, so it was much more laying around. This is a picture of Stella and Dante. Both are alpha, and neither wanted to give up the dog bed.
        On another note, I finally got around updating a few pics on my website. Finally replaced the winter snow pictures with spring/summer pics.

Visit from Dave

A few things going on this week. Our latest fosters, Winston and Maggie were adopted out on Tuesday. We will be fosterless until they lift the quarantine down in Fla. On the work front, my company was just bought out by Seimens. They said it will be finalized sometime early next year. Just went through a similar transition a couple of years ago when Bayer bought out my old company. Waiting is the worst part. My friend Dave from Toronto made a spontaneous trip down for the weekend. He actually ended up celebrating ‘Canada Day’ here in the States. Aubry came over and the four of us played ‘Settlers of Catan’ and ‘Taboo’. I’m not much of a board game player, but both of these games are best with 4 people, so I got roped in. We grilled ribs and wings on Friday night. On Saturday, we wanted to try a new place downtown, so we went to Tru Luv’s for dinner. The weather was quite tolerable for late June, so we sat outside and had a view of the river. We had drinks at a few of the bars downtown before heading back. A relaxing weekend with good friends and good food.

Parents Return & Marathon Week

        My parents returned today from spending six months in Korea. The entire family waited at the the international arrivals section of Dulles. In a sense, it seems like they left just yesterday. But six months is a long time to be gone. I know they especially missed not seeing their only granddaughter. The direct flight from Seoul was 14 hrs. It’ll take few days to get over the jetlag.
        On another note, I did my first marathon this past week. It took me all week to do it though. Running between 3-6 miles a day, I ran a little more than the equivalent of marathon. Now I need to see if I can do all 26.2 miles at one time. I can already do a 5K and 10K. Next on the list will be a 1/2 marathon. With all this running, I’m flying through the audiobooks on my iPod. Running and listening to an audiobook. That is my kinda multitasking. This is definitely the most ‘well-read’ I’ve ever been.
        On a final note, it was my big boy Lucas’ birthday today. He turned 4. We love our big goofy boy.

Double MnG Weekend

Father’s Day weekend equaled two Meet ‘n Greets for us. Saturday was at the PetCo in Stafford. Surprisingly, the drive up I-95 was not backed up with weekend traffic. Foot traffic through the store was a bit slow. Kris and I met up with a few friends we haven’t seen in a year for a drink at Hard Times near downtown Fredericksburg. Had a lot of things to catch up on, so ended up closing down the place and didn’t get back home till past 3 am. Guess we were still trying to feel young. We slept in late on Sunday and got up in enough time for the Meet ‘n Greet in downtown Fredericksburg. We had a dozen greys there (plus Parker) which is quite the turnout especially considering it was 90+ degrees. We stayed in the shade and had lots of ice water for the dogs. As I write this, we already got an app in from the Fred MnG. That’s why we do it :)

Fosters Fast Lindsay & Heat Capacity

Kris and I drove down to Wilson, NC today to pick up two new fosters. LnL Fast Lindsay is the pup of Debbie’s Ally. She is a small fawn with a sweet personality. The picture is of her with her grammy. Heat Capacity is just a goofy boy. He looks a lot like Graces Thunder who should officially be adopted tomorrow. Jason and Trina have had Thunder for nine weeks now, and I am sure they will have Thunder-withdrawal. Both Lindsay and Capacity have forever homes to go to. So we will be fostering them for only a couple of weeks until their new families return from their vacations. Hopefully Stella and Lucas will mentor them in their transition from the track to their forever homes.

VAGA Golf Tournament

Today was the VAGA golf tournament at Lee’s Hill Golf course. To prepare for this, Trina and Aubry stayed with us and helped us finish a few bottles of wine by the fire in the pagoda till about 2am. Needless to say, when we showed up to help this morning at 8:15 am, we were not in great shape. None of us had been on a golf course much less a golf tournament, so we were pretty much lost as to what to do. We ended up getting assigned to the beverage cart duties. Kris and I drove the golf cart with the sodas, and Trina and Aubry had the beer cart. They were much more popular. It was quite fun zipping around on the golf carts. We had quite a turnout of volunteers for the event. There were many greyhounds to greet golfers as they hit the links. All in all, it was a very successful event. Could possibly be our biggest single fundraising event all year. Afterwards, we went to our niece Kendall’s 2nd birthday party. There were 14 little screaming kids, and only Kris and I seemed to notice the ruckus and chaos that ensued. The parents had learned to tune it all out. I think we will just stick with our greyhounds :) After the party, we went into Kris’ lab for a few hours, so she could get her weekend work done tonight because tomorrow we will be spending the majority of the day driving to Wilson, NC to pick up two greys. One is LnL Fast Lindsay (Debbie’s Ally’s pup) and the other is Heat Capacity. On another note, I was reminded today that I have been slacking on updating my website pictures. Thanks Barb :) I will try to update them within the next week.

Orlando Greyhound Trip

I got a last minute call at the end of last week to go to Florida for work. Miami and Orlando. Three board members of VAGA were on vacation this week in Orlando. So I flew to Miami then drove to Orlando. After visiting both sites for work, I met up with the vacationing ladies and we went to visit the GPA rescue kennel, then visited one of the racing kennels (to see LnL Fast Lori & LnL Fast Jake - kids of Debbie’s Ale House), then went to the Sanford Orlando track to see the races. Carolyn had just gotten a new Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS UMS lens, and we tested it out at the track. Hope we got some good shots. Now I’ll be jonesing for a new lens :) It truly is amazing to watch the greys run. We got to see LnL Fast Jake and Coconut Cream (CC) run their hearts out. CC is VAGA’s Racing for Adoption dog. The profits from her racing go to help VAGA.

Stumpf Cookout

We went down to Richmond for an impromptu cookout at Jason & Trina’s. They still have Thunder. And we took our kids. And the Clarkes brought Logan. So that made seven greyhounds and Parker, Shiloh, and Dante. The weather was nice for a cookout. They have a nice flat square backyard, so the kids could do laps while we threw toys from the deck. Jason is becoming quite the grill master and his home-made pesto was great as usual.

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a relaxing Memorial Day weekend. No big cookout this year. On Saturday, we went to Cooper Vineyards for ‘Lucy’s Day’. Lucy is the hound they adopted from the SPCA. So we took the kids along. And since we still had Murphy, that made two SPCA dogs for us. The greys were a big hit. I always forget that for most people, greyhounds are still a rare site. We stayed for a little over an hour until the guys looked like they had had enough of the heat. We stopped off at the Miller Farm on the way back to pick up some fresh local goods. We got some squash, zucchini and some local meats (ground steak and baby back ribs). Gotta have some stuff to grill for the weekend. The ground steak burgers were great. We had the ribs for Memorial Day. They were my first attempt at slow cooking baby backs on the grill, and they were pretty tasty too. I think my next venture will be big ol’ beef ribs. Then I may move on to paella. That may consist of me needing to buy a special paella pan :)

Lost Greyhound - Max

Max is a white with brindle male that is currently lost in Middleburg, VA. He has been lost for a couple of days now. It’s a bit over an hour away from the house, so I decided to trek up there this morning to see if I could catch a sighting of Max. The more people searching, the better the chances. I spent a couple of hours driving around the area and ran into quite a few others doing the same. It’s on the way to Blue Ridge Vet, at least the back way I take, so I was somewhat familiar with the area. This is Virginia horse country, so the properties are quite large and the area is quite rural. It would have been pure luck to catch a sighting of him since so much of the area is heavily wooded. As of this afternoon, haven’t gotten any updates that he has been seen or is safely back home. I hope our guys never get loose, but it’s nice to know that the greyhound community is there to support us if it happens.

VAGA Picnic

Our annual VAGA picnic was held at the Elsbernd’s in Leesburg. They have a 2 acre fenced-in backyard. We had about 75 greys and over 100 people, and there was plenty of space for all the kids (human and canine) to run around and have fun. We were there from about 1-4pm. Our kids got to run around pretty much the entire time. They will be pooped for the next couple of days. We went up with Jason and Trina. We took Stella, Lucas and Angel. They brought Dana and Thunder. Our non-greys (Parker, Murphy, Shiloh and Dante) spent the day at my house. Highlights for the Park family: Kristen was introduced as a new board member and Lucas got the tallest/biggest greyhound award. We always knew he was a big lug. Also, we came back one dog down. A family from Waynesboro came to the picnic to check out Angel and left with her after signing official adoption papers. Their previous grey was a senior when they got him, and they were looking for a younger more active grey. Angel is young, active, and such a sweetie. Who will be our next foster???

Babysitting!

Beginning this weekend, we are watching Murphy as well as Aubry’s kitties. Both for a week or so. That makes our three dogs and three cats plus Angel plus Murphy plus Aubry’s two kitties for a total of ten furballs in the house. They outnumber the humans 5 to 1. We have multiple dog beds downstairs and upstairs. Gets to be a pain dragging beds up and down. Costco’s Kirkland beds are cheap enough that we essentially cover most of the house in dog beds. Our kitties are down in the basement and aren’t too keen on coming up when we have this many dogs in the house. Aubry’s kitties are spending their vacation here in the guest bedroom.

Aubry's Graduation Party!

We held a party at the house Sat night for Aubry’s ‘official’ graduation from the University of Mary Washington. This was our first big cookout of the season. The forecast had called for afternoon thunderstorms all week. Luckily, the rain stayed away. Aubry’s mom came in from Roanoke to help celebrate. Since Aubry is now part of the greyhound ‘cult’, quite a few greys came for the party. There were 15 dogs and 10 were greys (a practice for next week’s annual VAGA picnic). They all got along great, and we had a fun time watching them run around the yard. We had a varied menu including two types of Virginia wine-based sangria, home-made guacamole, bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers, and bulgogi-marinated tri-tip steak as well as the usual fare of swedish meatballs, bratwurst and chicken wings. Something for everyone. The grill got quite a workout. After it got dark, we started a fire in the iron pagoda on the patio enjoying the heat while the night chilled around us. We set off some fireworks, and a couple of them surprised us when they whistled loudly then flew 100 ft or so in the air. Dante the dachshund tried to attack the fireworks as they were going off.

Cinco de Mayo weekend

Friday was Cinco de Mayo. Had a few friends over for a fajita cookout with margaritas. It rained midday and let up just in time for us to grill and eat on the deck before the sun went down. After the rain rolled through, it was a bit chilly, so we started a fire in the iron pagoda chiminea on the patio. Relaxing to just chat while watching the fire sipping on margaritas. On Saturday, we had a carwash fundraiser for the greyhounds at the Culpeper SuperWal-Mart. We had no idea what we were in for since this was our first carwash. We were all pleasantly surprised to make $591 by the end of the day. Since that will be matched by Wal-Mart, it was quite a successful fundraiser. We lost both of our fosters on Saturday. Zeke went up to Leesburg to meet a possible forever home. Angel went down to Richmond with Jason & Trina. We had originally planned on baby-sitting a couple of greys next week for a recent VAGA adopter. But she found people to house-sit for her. So now we are fosterless for a couple of days. Since Jason & Trina still have Thunder (a month now), I will pick up Angel on Monday to put us back at one foster each. On Sunday, we went over to Aubry’s to have lunch in downtown Orange. Then we headed to the Montpelier Wine Festival a few minutes away. This was about the same size as the James River Wine Festival last weekend. A local festival with local vendors. We bought a mix of different wines, a few dry mixes for dips, and a few bottles of sauces. We love being able to support the local growers and producers.

First Bike Ride of the Year

Went on my first bike ride this year. I met my ol’ riding buddy Greg. We’ve been riding together for the past decade or so. When I was in graduate school, we used to go riding several times a week. Over the years, it’s been less and less each year. Guess that’s what happens when you get out of school, get married and settle down, and have family responsibilities. But we try to keep the tradition up and go riding a few times every year. Today we did a two hour ride in Pocahontas State Park. They put in some mountain bike only trails since the last time we were there. I’m still riding my full-rigid (aka no shocks) Bontrager Privateer. At my age, I should be riding a dual-suspension bike :) But it was fun to go for a ride and catch up on things.

James River Wine Festival

On Sunday Kris, Aubry and I went down to Richmond for the James River Wine Festival at the Innsbrook pavilion where we met up with Jason and Trina. I also ran into my old graduate school friend Rob and his fiancee Jen at the event. Most of the wines were so-so, but there were a few good ones. I guess that’s good, so that we didn’t feel the need to buy them all. We mainly ended up buying wines to make sangrias for Aubry’s graduation party. After a couple of hours of sun, we headed back to Trina’s for a cookout. I think this was Jason’s first cookout at the new house, and he did admirably. The food was excellent. Maybe I can convince him to do the grilling for Aubry’s party in a couple of weeks while I sit back and relax :) We left our kids at home, but there were enough dogs go around. Trina still has Thunder, so that makes four for her. And another guest brought his golden retriever, making it five. If we brought our kids, we would have doubled the number to ten.

Downtown Fredericksburg Stroll

The weather was absolutely beautiful today. So we took the kids for a stroll in downtown Fredericksburg. We mainly wanted to see how Zeke & Angel would do in unfamiliar social situations. Both kids did fine. A fire engine blared its horn. A few Harleys burbled by and their ears barely perked. Angel even managed to kiss a baby in a stroller. We got stopped quite a few times so people could ask questions and pet the kids. Guess it’s quite a site to see four greyhounds and Parker come strolling down the sidewalk. We even ran into a lady who was in our obedience class a few months back. Of course she recognized Lucas and Stella before us. In the doggie world, guess we are just our kids’ parents.

Zeke & Angel

Here are pictures of our latest fosters we picked up over the weekend. Zeke is the fawn male. Angel is the dark brindle female. They are both fitting in quite nicely into our family. We were originally supposed to pick up Zeke and Heather. Angel was originally planned as part of the Saturday haul to Northern Virginia. There was a mixup when the dog haul truck showed up on Saturday. So now we have Angel. We were going to swap Angel and Heather since Heather was planned for a family in our area. But the family ended up backing out. And since Heather is not cat-safe, and we have three kitties, we’ve decided to leave the girls where they are. So it looks like we might have Zeke & Angel with us for a while. That makes 5 dogs and 3 cats. Quite the frenzy during feeding time.

North Carolina Road Trip

We just returned from our road trip to Winston-Salem to see our friend Susan. The renovations on her house were amazing. If you put a bed in her kitchen, I could live in there. We went for a walk in her neighborhood on Saturday and ran into a couple of Labs behind an invisible fence, but which obviously was not working. They got all worked up and both came running into the street barking at our guys. We’ve had this happen to us before on walks in our own neighborhood, and the dogs have always been friendly. Just out for a sniff before heading back home. These guys were baring teeth, and before we knew it, Lucas had a couple of punctures on his back side. I herded them back into their yard at which point the owners came out and called their dogs in. We called them later to let them know that their dogs had gone past their electric fence. They feigned ignorance, but this has happened to them at least once before that we know of. On Sunday we went to the local dog park. The first picture is of our guys making some new friends. On our way back home on Monday, we stopped by the Project Racing Home greyhound kennel near Greensboro to pick up a couple of greys, Zeke and Angel. The second pic is of some of the greys trying to figure out what kinda funny looking greyhound Parker is. Zeke stood up in the car the entire 4.5hr drive home, with much growling from our guys whenever he stepped on one of them. They settled in pretty quickly, having no problems with the stairs or doggie door. I will post pics of them as soon as I get a few good shots. Also, I have added a link to Trina’s greyhound blog. We have known her for years and now she and her husband Jason recently adopted Dana and have been fully sucked into the greyhound ‘cult’ too.

1500+ mile week

I put on close to 1000 miles this week for work. And gas is near $3 a gallon. We’ll put another 600+ miles this weekend to visit our friend Susan in Lewisville, NC. She has the two English Cocker Spaniels from a previous post. It’s been well over a year since Kristen has been there. I stop by sometimes when I am in the area for work. The renovations are finally done on her house, so we’re going down to check it out. Susan has known Parker since he was a pup, and met Stella not too long after we got her, but she hasn’t met Lucas yet. Lucas loves to flirt with the girls, and both her English Cockers are girls. On the way back, we are going to stop by a rescue kennel near Greensboro and pick up a couple of greys. We will be fostering both of them for a bit. We might have to strap our luggage to the roof rack if we’re going to comfortably fit 4 greys in the back of the 4Runner. Parker always lays on a dog bed on the lap of the person in the passenger seat. That should be a fun drive back.

Fosterless weekend

This will be the first weekend in a while since we haven’t had a foster dog with us. We dropped Thunder off last weekend in Richmond. The house feels empty with only three dogs and three cats :) We have a Meet ‘n Greet in Stafford today. Not sure what the turnout will be since it is Easter weekend. Hopefully the weather will lighten up today. It rained through most of the night, and they are calling for scattered/isolated T-storms today and tomorrow. And it’s supposed to get to 85 today. With all the rain, sounds like hot and muggy to me. Where did Spring go? If the weather holds out this afternoon, I will make fajitas on the grill and Aubry and Kris will make sure we don’t run out of margaritas. A Cinco de Mayo practice run.