Greyhound Gardens

Taking back the turf

May 7, 2012 Flocko 8 Comments

Flocko

Flocko has decided that the red head has had enough time on the blog and he’s taking back his turf. He wants his front and center spot back. Secretly  I think he’s spreading rumors that the red head is damaged goods now.

Probably not a wise thing to do because Timber had an awesome day. He chased his chicken livers down with a kibble snack. Woo hoo!

We’ll see who wins this battle.

Flocko is wearing his purple

March 25, 2012 Flocko 3 Comments

Flocko

As it turns out, March 26 is Purple Day, global awareness for epilepsy. I suspect that the original intent was more for humans than canines, however, epilepsy is part of our lives and it is important to us.

Flocko had his first seizure while he was in the racing kennel. Nancy the kennel trainer called me that morning and said he was a pet. I made my flight reservations that day and Flocko was back in Oregon within a month.

Flocko’s seizures are managed with phenobarbital and we’re really lucky, but when they break through, it is so darn scary.

Most of the time he is a normal, happy and active boy. I would never hesitate to bring home a dog that has seizures, he is a wonderful pet.

We’ve had tests done and really have no idea what triggers the seizures. We only know that when one breaks through, there will probably be several in a 48 hour period. Flocko holds his own, but it is clear that they wipe him out.

It would be wonderful if they could figure out why they happen.

In the meantime, Flocko is wearing his purple for Purple Day.

Seven days

March 19, 2012 Flocko 8 Comments

Seven days ago I posted a picture of a cedar tree that had fallen where I normally park my car. I was feeling pretty darn lucky that day. I bought my car new back in September and I really love it.

Seven days later, my poor beautiful new car wasn’t so lucky.

For the most part, I am a creature of habit. Co-workers know that everyday, somewhere between noon and one I dutifully trek home to let the dogs out. I’m only a mile and a half from work and I can take the back way into the campus and miss most of the traffic.

Today however, I was going to work in a nail appointment and a trip to the printer to check proofs in addition to letting the dogs out. It changed my route.

I sat at a stop light, waiting for the cars in front of me to move when it had turned green. I was a block from my vet clinic, a mile from the campus, a mile from home and about 10 blocks from my nail appointment.

I didn’t even see it coming and apparently the driver of the other vehicle didn’t see it coming either because she had dropped her soda and had leaned over to pick it up.

I was lucky and I know that. The speed limit is 40 miles per hour through there. She had probably gone through the previous light, saw the green light but failed to notice the five cars still not moving. My foot was on the break so I didn’t get slammed into the car in front of me, but still, my beautiful shiny new car…

I didn’t have any dogs with me and my camera was sitting on the passenger seat like it frequently does, but this is gonna be a pain in the butt.

My neck and back are sore, chiropractor at 7:40 am, her insurance doesn’t have an estimator in the area so I have to take it to their chosen body shop on the other side of town, a rental car from a company that doesn’t allow pets in their cars and now, when it comes time to trade it in, Carfax will have an accident listed.

Her car? A 1998 Ford Explorer with a mildly pushed in bumper.

Yes, I’ve gone from hopping mad, to thankful, to pitiful.

Flocko

So, I’ll go back to being thankful. Nobody was hurt and I didn’t have anybody in the back of the car.

A rousing game of sun ball

March 18, 2012 Flocko 7 Comments

Flocko

We had one of those really rare evenings, the sun appeared if only for a brief period of time. Flocko has been playing his daily game of Flocko ball in the rain and mud for weeks now. He nearly didn’t know what to do with himself when the sun appeared.

He wanted everyone to know that greyhounds have way more style when it comes to the game of chase. Redheads aren’t the only ones that “got game.”

Of course he took advantage of laying in the grass with his treasure.

What’s up this week

February 5, 2012 Flocko 9 Comments

Flocko

It was a beautiful day to just stay outside and play with the hounds. Or, Karen tossed the toys and stayed behind the camera barking out orders. “Throw the toy over there. See if you can turn them a little more this way. Wait!, my camera is buffering right now.” Poor Karen, somedays I’m impossible.

I think I have mentioned Paul and Nancy before. When I look around at the hounds, I can credit them for most of our current dogs. When I talked to Nancy a few weeks ago, she was asking how everyone was. She remembers each and every hound even though a few of them have been with us for many years.

I’ve decided to make this Paul and Nancy week and bring out their hounds in their sunny glory.

We actually met them thanks to Flocko. The story goes something like this. I had been involved in greyhound adoption for several years. By mid-summer 2004 we had fostered probably 60-70 hounds and I can honestly say that we never had a bad dog. I thought to myself that if each of these dogs are so wonderful, greyhound racing must not be too bad and I wanted to see for myself.

I mentioned to my friend Jeff that I would like to have a race dog and before I knew it, he hooked me up with Nancy. I remember the day we went to her farm just like it was yesterday. There were puppies, lots of puppies and Nancy. It took us all of 30 seconds to know that we would be friends for life.

She took us around the farm and then we met 11 month old Flocko. With a twist and shout, we bought our first race dog. Flocko knew from that moment on that when he was ready to retire, he would be a Greyhound Garden dog.

As our luck would have it, racing ended in Oregon and we had to watch Flocko race from a far. First he raced in Connecticut and then Florida. We watched him run thanks to the telecasts over the Internet. If I were a betting person, I probably would have made some money.

It was a happy day for all when we met Flocko. We wanted his race name to be MakG5 because both Karen and I are Apple computer people. It didn’t take and we went with KNT A Blazin’. We always called him Mak, but they had called him Flocko from the time he was a pup and when he retired he made it perfectly clear his name was Flocko.

He raced until he was almost 5. I remember the early morning that Nancy called me from the kennel. Flocko was having a grand mal seizure, she was really worried. She called me back about 30 minutes later and said that he was OK, but he was officially retiring, he was a pet. That was in early March. I checked the flights, made my reservations and flew down to Florida two weeks later to fly him back home with me.