Vote for Katie!

Katie is one of our group member's dogs. She's sweet, smart and enthusiastic, and will do whatever her owner tells her to, including cleaning the shower! Please take a minute to click on the photo and vote for this goofy girl on the Bissell site. If she wins Bissell will donate $10,000 to SEGA and we can help a lot more Greyhounds : )

More about Katie if you're interested...

We <3 Flip Video

Brian got an inexpensive Flip video camera and it has been way fun. It's super compact, easy to use, and takes great videos. Check out the video I posted on Facebook from yesterday's Atlanta Tea Party protest. Or, for brief moments of silliness, watch these:

Christina Makes Them Dance

Future Olympic Athlete

Chillin' - or Not - to the Backstreet Boys

Foster Doggie

This is Cane. Isn't he handsome?

Goinz On

I have been so bad about posting, I know. Sorry : (  There's been a lot going on but perhaps things will slow down a bit now that I'm all married and stuff!

I have posted pictures from our wedding on Facebook. If you want to see them but aren't on Facebook and don't want to be, e-mail me and I'll send you a link to them.

Not quite two weeks ago I had sinus surgery, which technically included a nose job (ha ha). They put me under, ripped all the crappy sinus tissue out and fixed my nose so it could actually drain if I get any congestion. And given that I have allergies and I live in Georgia, that's inevitable. Recovery has mostly been okay but breathing only from my mouth the first few days was the worst.

Brandon is now on the track team at his new school and they are wearing him out. Last night I went into his room around 8:30 and he was out cold. I can't wait to see him do his thing at a track meet.

Michelle is resisting the pressure to pick up an extracurricular activity of her own. It's not that she's unwilling, exactly. She just doesn't want to do anything athletic...or anything big sis Christina has done...or anything requiring coordination...or anything that might be considered uncool by her peers.

We have another foster dog in the house. His name is Cane and he is a good-looking 2.5 year old boy. Alas, he does not seem to be the brightest dog...but he sure is enthusiastic! He recently discovered the area under the deck, but it took him a while to figure out how to get out from under the deck. Standing at the back door and calling him just confused the poor boy. He'd go - still underneath the deck - to where you were calling him, which was at the opposite end from the opening. Cane never really raced. They let him try 15 times, but that apparently wasn't enough for him to figure out what he was supposed to do. He has his own blog, which I am (supposed to be) maintaining, so check him out if you like.

I've Been Cheating on You

Public admission of guilt: something else has been taking up a lot of my spare time. I still read every single post and comment, but I have fallen behind with the responses I'd like to leave (especially to my Jazzy niece and her not-silly sadness post). I'm sorry, and I'll try to do better, I promise.

If you're wondering where I've been, you can find out here.

No More Fish Breath

Grayson probably wondered what was up Monday morning when he didn't get any breakfast or even a drink of water. But he thought it was pretty cool that he got to go for a car ride instead of staying home with Sara...until we got to the vet's office.

When the vet tech came to get him for his dental, Grayson climbed up on a bench near the window in the waiting room and seemed to be trying to figure out how to make a getaway before I pulled him down. Poor guy. At least they spared him a little pain and gave him his vaccinations while he was still under anesthesia.

They had to pull three teeth and he's now on his second round of antibiotics, but his breath will no longer bowl you over. Now if they could only figure out how to fit him for braces...

Got a Minute?

You can help Southeastern Greyhound Club in our mission to give as many former racing Greyhounds as possible a new lease on life as family pets. Won't even cost you five cents and won't take even five minutes.

From one of our Screening and Placement Committee members:

Please go to the website listed below and enter the $5000 sweepstakes on behalf of Southeastern Greyhound Club-Southeastern Greyhound Adoption. $5000 is being given away each month for 6 months, so please enter for us several times this month and again each month. I will remind you. And check the box for the OUST donation for Tara and the kennel :-)

Thanks for your support.
Patty

Petfinder Sweepstakes

And Speaking of Cell Phones...

Racy!

We (Brian, Michelle, Brandon & I) went to an animal farm of sorts as well this weekend. SummerWind Farm, to be exact, where we attended an annual gathering of something like 300+ Greyhounds and their owners. It was a lot of fun, but tiring. Brian judged the Greyhound contests for the second year in a row, and was licked and hugged by numerous doggies while trying to determine the best kisser and hugger. And for the second year in a row, Sara had the second-longest tail and Grayson was the second-or third-tallest (I forget).

Probably the best thing we got to do is watch the dogs take off as fast as they could toward a stuffed bunny at the end of a training lure (what they use to teach Greyhounds to chase - they don't need much encouragement). Next to the person with the lure was another person with a squawker - a gadget that makes a generic prey-like sound (close to a squirrel, but not quite). It's a combination that makes the dogs so crazy they want to go get it. A third person was there with a radar gun, clocking the dogs. This year, both Sara and Grayson beat their times from last year, coming in at 46mph. Needless to say, they've spent most of the time since then laying around the house!

There was a big (for us) announcement about a special, secret fundraising effort that had been undertaken. Since it costs, on average, $475 to take a dog from the track, spay/neuter and house it before adoption, and we can only get $275 for an adoption fee, there would be a constant shortfall without fundraising and donations. So someone had the bright idea, after seeing the film Calendar Girls, to do a similar nude calendar using some of our members and their Greyhounds in shots with, shall we say, strategically placed props. It was really nicely done, and we hope to sell at least 1500 of them. Take a look (it's maybe PG-13 and there is very little actually revealed, so don't panic!) - www.greymates.org. Please, please pass it along to anyone you think would get a kick out of it. Even if they don't buy a calendar they may pass it along to someone who will. Surprisingly, women - straight ones - have been the most enthusiastic supporters so far.

No, I'm not in it. I seriously considered it, though! But I did do the design and coding for the web site : )

Smart Dog, Lucky Owner

Pam Davis, one of our Southeastern Greyhound Adoption and Greyhound Club members down in Florida and the main person responsible for getting us dogs to be adopted out, posted this to our group message board yesterday:

"A couple of years ago, Greyhound Crossroads asked us for a BIG male and he didn't have to be cat tolerant. We sent them a dog named "Get Noticed". His adopter, Nancy McPhee, named him Stryker.

Today, I got this message from Joanne:

One of your dog's saved someone's life. Nancy McPhee adopted Get Noticed now Stryker from us. He was a special order that you picked out for her from her description of what she wanted. The other night he woke her up about midnight and whined and poked her with his nose. She though he needed to go out even though he had just been out an hour and a half before. She got up and took him out. He didn't need to go and kept whining and bothering her and wouldn't let her go back to sleep. He never does that. Finally she realized her heart was beating VERY fast and strangely- she has had heart problems before. Her husband raced her to the emergency room. They had to stop her heart and restart it and I think shocked her heart at least once. Sounded like she barely got there in time. Stryker definitely saved her life by not letting her go back to sleep:)

How cool is that???"

Indeed - how cool IS that? Sometimes our dogs are smarter than us.

Caught in the Act

Last week I bought a stuffed Dr. Seuss Sam I Am toy - it was on clearance for only $2.50 - and put it in the middle of the bed in the funky pop art room. One day I came upstairs to find Sara playing with Sam I Am in the middle of the living room floor. I thought maybe Grayson had gotten it down because Sara is afraid of climbing on anything very high. I took the toy away from her and put it back on the bed. A short while later, same thing. It became apparent that Grayson was innocent, but how to prove it when Sara would only grab Sam I Am when I was out of the room?

As it turns out that was not a problem. Amanda was over and we were chatting while I was putting together an IKEA desk. Meanwhile, Sara was pacing and eyeing Sam I Am, and when she couldn't control herself any longer she snatched him with only one guilty glance over her shoulder. Naughty girl!

Pet Me!

Janet was petting Grayson (for some time, as I recall) and when she stopped he put his paw on her leg to get her attention and - hopefully - more pets!