Some days you just gotta run

Pippi is our most active hound by far. She is 4 years old but still has loads of energy. She gets restless in the house sometimes and all she wants to do is run. We should exercise her more often and we are trying to get better about it. It is just hard when you leave for work at 7:40 a.m. and don't arrive back home until 6:00 p.m. I know, I know, excuses, excuses. ;-)

Yesterday she shocked me. We came home from attending a 2 hour meet and greet in Richmond and I thought for sure all our pups were exhausted, as this is usually the case. But not Pippi, she was ready to run. So she and I played catch for awhile outside.


Now, while I was at Beach Bound Hounds, I attended a photography seminar, because I need all the help I can get! Just the basics were discussed, but a lot of what she said made complete sense. I was trying to put one of the basics into use by making sure I was on the dog's level while taking pictures. This ended exactly like it looks like it did. I was run over by a speeding hound! LOL! My rump is a little sore, but it made me laugh out loud, so it was well worth the pain. :)

She just loves squeaky toys and romping around the yard in circles. She does a complete loop from the deck stairs, down around the side yard and then cuts across the patio back to the deck. I need to take a video of this. It is quite amusing to watch her doing this.

Below she is heading towards the side yard.

U-turn in the side yard.

Coming towards the patio.
Heading onto the patio and towards the deck stairs.

Her finish line is the top of the deck stairs. This is where she patiently waits for me to throw the squeaky toy for her again.

And this one is an extra. It is really blurry and not in focus, but it amazed me that she was so low to the ground!
5 minutes later, she was done and ready to go back inside. She just needed that time to run. Hope everyone is having a greyt weekend!

Someone is turning 9 tomorrow, so stay tuned!

BBH 2009. Myrtle Beach, SC

This is going to be a rather lengthy post. We just got home from our trip to Myrtle Beach, SC a few hours ago. We had such a fabulous time! The weather was absolutely perfect last week. The rain stayed away. We had sunny skies on all days except for Friday. The water was warm and the waves were nice. Greyhound Crossroads did an awesome job putting this event together. 200 families registered for the event. Lots and lots of greyhounds, fun greyhound activities, a silent auction, lots of vendors and of course the beach. We would love to be able to go to this event again, and hopefully we will be able to in the near future.

For those who enjoy spending time in the surf, beach conditions were nice.
We did not bring our swim suits with us, so we spent lots of time enjoying walks on the beach with the pups.
And sunsets on the beach with the pups.

And, lounging time on our beach blanket.
We also spent lots of time loving on the pups at the beach and in our room.
Maggie, Booyah and Cueball are old pros at the beach, but Pippi needing some coaxing. She did not like the water rushing on her at first. By the end of the week, she was happily playing in the water with us. :) Cueball did this a lot. We would walk a little bit and then he would sit down in the water at random spots along our walk.

If Booyah had a thought bubble, I think it would say "If you can't beat them, join them."
Some pups really enjoyed the water and some preferred the sand. You may recognize some familiar faces from the doggie bloggie world below. Dolly and Diego; Dana and Cali; and Stanley and Jaime were all in attendance.
This pretty dark brindle five year old female hound cracked us up. She really loved the water. We watched her family play catch with her. They would throw the football into the water and she would go bouncing into the water to retrieve it. It was pretty neat to see a hound enjoy the water so much and retrieve so well.
Below are a just a few pics of the pups that I think are pretty stinking cute. No captions necessary. ;-)


Pippi made a new friend while we were hanging out at the beach on Friday. Diesel thought Pippi's rump made a nice pillow and she didn't seem to mind or she may have been too exhausted at this point to care.We met Butter, an Afghan hound. She is strikingly pretty. Isn't she? Just beautiful, but lots and lots of maintenance to keep her looking like this.

We did manage to leave the hounds at the hotel for a few hours on Wednesday. We went out to eat lunch at Margaritaville. What a fun restaurant with a great laid back atmosphere! We had a blast. :) We took the pups with us on Friday night to Barefoot Landing took a stroll around and ate dinner at Bully's restaurant. That was a neat experience to be able to eat dinner with the pups. The restaurant was right on the water, very pretty setting.

We did a bit of shopping and bought some nice pieces of artwork, new T-shirts and hats and I won a very cute puppy greyhound clock in the silent auction.

Early this morning we said our goodbyes to the beach. We joined our greyhound family for the Blessing of the Hounds, which I will leave you with. Pretty powerful words.

Blessing

As we let old friends go, let's rejoice in the dear ones that are still with us.

We pray to you, God, our Creator, to bless our dogs with your radiant light and love. May our animal friends have good health and joyful lives and always be protected and safe.

We ask for better understanding as we learn from our dogs' wisdom, their innocence, their loyalty and particularly their seeming ability to not judge human beings unkindly.

Thank you for the pleasures, playfulness, and sometimes the surprising humor of our companions.

Thank you for their friendship - especially during those lonely hours we may experience.

Thank you for our companion's natural ability to teach us to be aware of the present moment.

Thank you for the pure beauty of every dog - their form, color, texture, and motion is all a work of art, and may we appreciate your creation of this masterpiece.

Bless all dogs in harm's way - heal the sick - protect those who are lost, and guide them to safety.

Thank you for your gifts of love. Amen.

God Bless you, Dear Hounds of mine. May my love for you be a constant reminder of God's love for me and all of His creations.

Amen! Be Well!! Be Blessed!!!

-based on a pet blessing written by Rev. Phyllis Ann Min.

2 September Gotcha's

We are celebrating two Gotcha Days this week. :) First up is Maggie. Her Gotcha Day is tomorrow. Hard to believe it has been 3 years. Whew....where does the time go? I can still remember that radio interview that I heard on 1140 AM that got it all started for me and I will never forget the greyhounds name who they were talking about that day, Charlie Brown.

I knew nothing about the breed. Hey, I mean I was really ignorant when it came to information about greyhounds. I did not even know they were used as racing dogs. I only knew of them from the greyhound buses. Yes, I must have been living under a rock all my life!

I started researching by looking at different sites. Mitch and I discussed it and once he was on board we submitted our application. During the adoption process I read the Dummies book and Cynthia Branigan's book so that I could be as ready as possible for our new family member. I can still remember the day I got the call that we were approved and more distinctly I remember the call I got asking if we would consider adopting a grey that was almost six. Age was no factor for us, so Twisted Stix was put on hold for us. I already had her name selected and to be quite honest I don't know how we could have made her track name work. I certainly was not going to call her Stix. Besides, Maggie suits her pretty well.

She was in heat when she came up and went into foster for a week. We were not prepared, nor did we have any experience with a dog in heat, as all of my pets have always been spayed prior to me adopting them, so we let the experts handle that. We got a couple of pictures of her via email from her foster mom and I was ecstatic! I showed all the girls in the office her picture and told them all about her and greyhounds in general. Looking back on it now, I am sure they thought I was a bit loony, but that's okay. :)

The day finally came for the official adoption and I was nervous and excited. When I saw her for the first time, I knew she was a special girl. She was super sweet, very pretty, petite and very inquisitive. It was hard to focus on the information during the adoption, but we did the best we could. We adopted her on a Thursday and I stayed home from work the next day to help her get acclimated to her new life. KC had no issue with her and gladly shared her bed.The first few days were interesting. She was a nervous nelly about everything and would not go potty or for that matter even go outside. She was scared of the sound that the crickets and frogs made. I slept downstairs in the spare bedroom with her for the first few days. We had her for few days and then had to take her up to Northern, VA to get her vet work done. She was gone for two days and then came back home. When she was dropped off at our house by a volunteer in the Gum Springs area, I was told she lifted her leg and pee-ed on their coffee table. I apologized for her behaviour. The volunteer said "we did not mind that too much, but when she lifted her leg and pee-ed on our male greyhound we were a little upset with her". I remember thinking Oh my, you really are very alpha. Well, three years later, she still lifts her leg to pee and she christens every dog that visits our humble abode. She has overcome her fear of frogs and crickets but still fears fish tanks and anything new. But hey, nobody is perfect, right? She adapted pretty quickly to her new life. She even taught herself stairs. Mitch came home one day on his lunch break to find the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs had been knocked down and Maggie was sitting upstairs in the hallway. She is still very inquisitive and does not like change! If anything in her environment changes: new placement of furniture, trashcan or the like, she barks and has to investigate it by slowly approaching with her shaking body.

Such a goofy girl, but we love her very much! She is my heart!!! I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy Gotcha Day Maggie! We look forward to many more quirky, memorable, fun, loving years together. :)


Next up is another heart dog, Cueball. His Gotcha day is this Saturday. All of you who personally know Cueball, know that he is 100% daddy's boy and daddy's heart. We adopted him 2 years ago. By that time we had the newbie drill down pat. He was part of the group of 12 greys that came up from Florida. They named that group of greys the Delightful Dozen. It was a special group. A kennel in Florida was closing leaving 20 dogs with no where to go. VAGA and a group from Canada stepped up to help and all 20 were saved. :)

Unlike Maggie, Cueball made himself right at home very quickly and adjusted to home life like he had always been in one. He is a very quick learner. He has a lot of confidence. I think he could have been fine as an only dog. In my experience I can't say this about too many of the males. ;-)He has a lot of character and personality so his name really suits him. Not sure why his racing name was Flying Eightball. We were expecting to find a large black speck of ticking on him somewhere when we we got him, but nada.

He was the first roacher to join our family. He has such a sweet face and the most adorably unique ears. He loves sleeping on blankets. He loves to run and still has huge hammies. He has always been very strong. We can't walk him with a regular leash and collar. We have to use a harness and even with that he still pulls, but is manageable.He loves to romp around the yard with his brother and tease his sisters. No one can catch him in our pack and he knows it.He loves to sunbath and enjoys rolling around in the grass. He is also very photogenic. We think he knows he is a stud! :)We love his goofiness and are so pleased he is part of our family! Happy Gotcha day Cueball! Daddy says you can never leave him and you have to live forever. :)


And finally NFL Football is back. Wahoo.....Sunday Ticket! GO COLTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And, Tuesday we are making the trip down to MB for the Beach Bound Hounds event. =)

Lots of things going on in September, so stick around.