The family grows by 1....almost

Big A and I have begun keeping an eye out for a prospective second dog. One day, Big A was exasperated at the lack of dogs that caught his eye. I told him that much like Hooch, a dog will find us when it's right. That day almost came on Sunday.

As we were outside, preparing to BBQ (on the gas grill), I noticed a dog in a neighbor's backyard. It was a greyhound. This neighbor doesn't have dogs much less one like that so once Hooch settled down, Big A went to the fence and called her over. She came over and let him pet her as I went around the block to corral her with a Milkbone and a leash. This scrappy not so little but extremely thin thing was hard to catch because she's a fence jumper. We finally found her in another neighbor's backyard and she came when Big A called her. As we were walking around the block with her, Big A is reminded of what I said about the right dog will find us and begins to lament about it. He was hoping for something short legged for him to walk and go figure, a greyhound would be the dog to find us.

We called the Greyhound Rescue number that was on her collar so as we waited, I petted her and looked her over (after safely securing her to the clothes line pole so that there was no more fence jumping). Greyhounds are normally very thin but her hips were very noticeable along with a large callus on the tip of her nose and a couple on the back of her back legs. I wondered if that was from the muzzle that they wear when racing. By her white face (the rest of her body was what they called brindle), we guessed that she was probably quite old and she had the sweetest disposition. When we finally let Hooch (who really looked like a brick compared to her) out to get acquainted, he took a shine to her too and tried to throw his 80 lbs on those frail looking hips of hers. Like all good girlfriends, I came to her rescue and pushed him off.

About an hour later, the rescue people were able to track down the owner who actually lived at the end of our street. He came to get her (whose name turned out to be Cher..I found it quite appropriate that a gay man would have a dog named that) and told us that he was her foster parent. She was only 3 weeks into retirement from racing and was only 5 years old. It's hard to imagine someone treating such a sweet thing as I've heard they can be treated. We're now thinking about getting one ourselves and setting up a greyhound-friendly track in the backyard every spring to pay the summer property taxes.