Mike, foster dog #17

                                 Hi.  I had been blogging about my foster dogs, then they got adopted so naturally I stopped.  We took a little time off from fostering to let my dogs relax and return to normal.  But while we did that, a dog named Red was returned by his owner, and he stayed with us for a short while.  He was adorable, and I really wanted to keep him.  Fortunately, a lady came to meet him at one of our events, and he really, really liked her.  She is now the proud owner of Red.  Any way, we got 5 dogs in from the Alabama tracks on November 15.  All 5 dogs had foster homes to go to, so we didn’t foster this time. 

       Then, the phone rang, and one of the foster families was having problems and not able to give their foster dog, Mike, the time, training and attention he needed.  She asked if there was some place he could go.  Naturally, I said he could come and stay with us.

                                 Mike is a 3 year old Black greyhound.  He only has a quarter of a tail, 6-8 inches long.  Greyhounds ordinarily have a long whip of a tail, normally 17-22 inches long.  Mike's tail was obviously amputated at some point.  I called the kennel to see if they knew why.  The kennel mom said she had asked everyone she knew and no one knew why his tail had been removed.                  Anyway, Mike does fine without his tail and it is very cute when he wags it. His rear thighs are bald, but the fur should grow in over time.  He is a gorgeous Black dog with a white chest the slowly disappears down his belly and he has a few white toes.

Mike All curled up

  This Blog is about the adventures of Mike and his growing up while in my care.  He will make a great pet for someone who wants a happy, energetic dog. 
These are the best pictures I have of Mike.  You can't tell that he is anything more than a resting dog in these pictures.  So far, the only thing he doesn't like, is the camera. 

Camera shy, Mike

Rollie leaving

This is a happy day for Rollie.  Not so much for me.  Rollie is going to a home,where the lady is going to foster with intent to adopt.  She is fostering greyhounds for another greyhound group but she has not fallen in love with her foster dog. She met Rollie at an event this weekend and came around 5 times asking about him and she decided he may just be the right dog for her to adopt.

So today I say farewell to my foster dog Rollie.  I know I should be happy for him, and he is able to go because of me. But, after 15 or 17 foster dogs, you'd think this would be easier by now.  I've decided if the foster dog is here for a short time, it is easy to let them go to their forever home.  But after 5 or 6 months, it is a terrible feeling to say good bye to the dog who had diarrhea for almost a

month, the dog who fell asleep while roaching and used the wall to prop himself up while sleeping, to the guy who would joyfully roo "hello" when I came down the stairs after feeding him.  The dog that learned squeakies are fun, treats are good, and people that lay on the floor with you are wonderful. I will miss this guy a lot.
In addition to me missing him, I will need to help River understand the loss of her best dog friend.  While it takes a while for her to warm up to them, after they understand her and the rules, she enjoys the company of the foster dog.

The tears will soon stop and I will appear normal again, I think.
So Mr. Rollie, I bid you a fond farewell.    I told him he can come back to me if it doesn't work out.

Bye Y'all!

Sardines

It occurred to me that it has been a long time since I blogged about Rollie.  So I was going to restart his blog, and I was planning out what to say.  But in the meantime, I have a story about my dogs, along with Rollie.

Sometime during the last month, I read on FB about all these people giving their greyhounds sardines, and many, many people saying their greyhounds love them. Some people add them to the food, some give as treats, and the dogs just cant get enough of them.  I thought, well, that’s interesting.  2 of my dogs like shrimp, and a couple like fish sticks and they all like canned Tuna, maybe they would like Sardines.  I try to let my dogs experience different  things in life so I thought, I will try that. While I was at the store, I paid $1.00 for a can of sardines in oil. 

After work today, it was beautiful outside.  The dogs had started going and looking in their dog bowls for food, so I thought I would treat them to sardines.  I remember that my brother ate sardines many years ago and they came with a key that you rolled the sardine can open with.  So I got out the can and looked for the key, and found it was a pop top. YAY.  So standing by the pantry door, I popped the tab and oil ran down my arm, down my pants and onto the floor.  Great...  so, I grabbed a paper towel and took the open can of sardines out to my dogs who were lying on the deck (including Rollie).  By the way, Sardines stink, so outside is where they need to be.

River was lying on the bed closest to the door, so I reached into the can of oil and sardines and gingerly picked up what appeared to be a headless fish.  As I took it from the can, only half of the fish came out.  I put that down in front of River.  She smelled it, looked at me, looked at the chunk of fish, sighed and put her head back down on her bed.  Ok, she is picky about what she eats.  No big deal.  Macho wanted it, but he knows he cannot take food from her even if she won’t eat it.  In the meantime, all the boys had gathered round for their treat. I attempted to give Macho the remaining piece of oily fish, but only part of the carcass came out.  I handed that to him and he swallowed it.  I gave the final piece of sardine to Ace, who smelled it and promptly said, “no thank you” and refused to take it.  I gave it to Macho who is always by my side.  Macho is like Mikey from the old Life cereal commercials, he’ll eat anything.  Cute little Rollie was standing there, tail wagging, “me. Me. Don’t forget me”.  So I handed him a greasy piece of the second dead fish in the can.  He took it, looked at me and using his tongue pushed that fish right onto the freshly power washed deck!  Splat! Oily fish with dog germs now is lying on concrete part of deck.  Macho wanted more so I handed him another piece.  By now, Macho has convinced the guys that Sardines are good, so they (Ace and Rollie) come around for more.  Ace takes a piece of the second sardine, (note, the piece was the size of a thumbnail), looks at me and drops it onto the concrete, a foot away from Rollie’s dropping.  Bill is out in the yard and I am temporarily distracted, but I realize subconsciously that Macho wants more fish.  So I hand him another piece without thinking.  And Rollie wants to try it again, so I blindly hand him some sardine.  By now River is up and asking to try it; although, her big chunk is laying on the bed leaving a grease stain, so I hand her another piece.  Soon there is only one left.  I decide to throw the remaining gawd awful smelling fish in the outside trash receptacle. 

When I return, I see on the deck, (that Bill took 3 hours to power wash last week), several pieces of dead fish.  Oily dead fish, on the clean deck.  It was a trail of sardines!  Apparently, Macho didn’t like them either and would spit them out when I wasn’t looking. And because he knows that I know he likes to eat everything he sacrificed himself, so the others wouldn’t have to endure Sardines, and he took as many as he could.  It seems River, Ace and Rollie all learned this trick from Macho, cause It didn’t appear any sardine was consumed by any of the four greyhounds.

I picked up the fishy, oily body parts from the deck and put them in the outdoor trash receptacle. The only thing that stinks worse than sardines, is hot dog poo in the outdoor trash receptacle on a hot afternoon.  But add some sardines to it, and HO LY COW! 10 feet away, it reeks!

I don’t think my dogs or Rollie like sardines, and I wonder why the many others do?

Play mate

Mr. Rollie has found his calling.  He is the welcome committee/play mate for new greyhounds!

This weekend seven retired racing greyhounds arrived from Alabama to begin their life as pets and companions.  They come here, and we and many ESGAO www.esgao.org volunteers prepare their bodies for their new lives.  I ensure one of the volunteers is coming to take pictures, cause, really, what good is a name of a dog without a picture?

While we are preparing for the bathing, tick removal, and micro-chipping, we let the new dogs run in the yard.  The new dogs have been cooped up in a trailer for roughly 18 hours and need to stretch and feel the ground, and just to be dogs.  This is when many pictures are taken.  After the recent retirees have been in the yard for a few minutes, my dogs including Rollie are going crazy in the house. I muzzled them and sent them out with to meet all the muzzled greyhounds who have overtaken their yard.

My dogs got tired of the new dogs within minutes.  Five minutes with new dogs, my dogs were begging to be let back into the house!  But not Rollie. 

I was busy coordinating the volunteers and directing people to the restroom, and getting forgotten items, so I didn’t spend a lot of time with the dogs, either mine or the new ones.   

Rollie stayed out in the yard with the new dogs.  Did I mention is was maybe 30 degrees, and spitting snow?  Greyhounds have very little hair, and nearly no fat (most of them) so they can get hot and cold very quickly. On the few times I got into the yard, Rollie was hanging with the new guys.  Proudly prancing, talking, occasionally running with them, having the time of his life. We kept the new dogs outside and as one got clean we brought in another till soon they were all in the garage.  When we let them all go back into the yard, Rollie and a couple of the volunteers were waiting for them!  

Mathias, Rollie, Fenn (L-R)

Red and Rollie

Rollie gleefully greeted them as they ran into the yard and pranced with them, went running and just hung around with the new guys.  There was no barking, no snarling and no problems.  Greyhounds are great together.  I didn't realize how social he was, until I saw the  pictures that were taken, and Rollie is in many of them. 

Flash's behind and Rollie

Rollie's behind, Ripple, macho

While we were on vacation, Rollie was able to stay with another foster family. I thought it would be better for him to be in a home than in a kennel with my dogs. Being in a kennel would be too confusing to him after not being kenneled since he retired. While with the foster family, Rollie cut his leg on that awful ice hiding under the dreadful snow. They rushed him to the vet, and the vet stitched him up and sent him home. The foster family opted to keep him until the stitches came out. Although we have been home for a couple weeks, Rollie just came back to us on Saturday. He walked in, said hello to my dogs, peed on the floor, and went and laid down in favorite bed. He and my dogs are acting as if he never left! I guess he feels comfortable here. So yesterday Khan came over with his family. Khan doesn’t have a yard to run in yet; although, the fence has been picked out and paid for, the installers don’t want to install it in the snow and cold. So Khan gets to go walking and running with his Dad and Human sister. We always invite our foster dogs to come back and run in the yard and spend some time with my dogs. So Khan came over yesterday to run in the yard. There is probably 4 inches of snow in the yard and it was less than 20 degrees yesterday. Khan came in said hello, gleefully greeted Bill and me and then went out with his human tweener to play and run in the yard. Well, my pack wouldn’t have that, so they went out to play and run in the yard too. (My dogs don’t like snow). Many times they all came in and went out, and many times, Khan would walk from person to person to get cuddled, petted and loved. Khan is NOT the Khan that was my foster dog. His new family took him from a skittish dog to a happy, confident and proud retired greyhound. I was so proud of him and very thankful that Khan found them. They obviously love him very much and he seems to feel the same way about them. Their love and kindness has brought the best out of him. This is what we, as foster parents hope for when our dogs get adopted. I am so happy for all of them! My dogs were very tired after spending the afternoon running and playing in the snow. They didn’t get up till 830 this morning. Even Rollie, the eating machine, slept until 8:00 which is two hours after his normal eating time. I can only hope that Rollie will soon find a family that will love him and teach him as well as Khan’s family has.

MY new Toy

We took Rollie to Petco for a meet and greet.  It is important to get the foster dogs out to socialize them, to get them exposed to potential adopters and so they can see new things.  This way, we can find out if they are other animal friendly, and if they like different types of people, like, Men, or Women or Children.  Since they were raised on the race track we don’t know what the foster dogs reaction to things will be and this allows us to see how they do in unusual situations.  Mr. Rollie does NOT like animals that are not Greyhounds.   Bill thinks he may be workable with larger dogs, but I am not so sure.

So while at the meet and greet, Rollie got antsy so Bill took him for a walk around the store.  They went past the mice, and guinea pigs, down by the birds, and checked out the cat and dog food.  Bill took him around the dog treats where Rollie happily sniffed everything a curious 26 inch tall greyhound could sniff.  Then he got to the squeaky toys. By this time, Bill was distracted, and not focused on the dog.  Rollie began investigating the toys.  He sniffed, looked and examined every toy he could.  Soon he gleefully grabbed a big blue Jack, like what little girls used to play with.  It is probably 10 inches square.  It has balls on the end of each spike and 2 squeak and 2 don’t.  The center of the jack squeaks. He proudly led Bill away from the toys carrying his new toy.  Bill said, I think Rollie found a toy he wants.  I laughed and said I guess he is getting another new toy!  I had already gotten him a Red football that squeaks. 

After Bill bought the toy, they all returned to the meet and greet area.  Ace was also interested in the new squeaker and so were the girl greyhounds that had come too.  Rollie allowed Ace to touch his new toy, then Rollie claimed it as his very own. 

When we got home, Rollie showed his new toys to Macho and River.  Macho of course had to test out the new toy.  Ace played with the new football.  Soon, they all fell asleep.

We try to keep the good toys in the house, especially when it is cold and snowy. Ace is always taking toys out side and we are always bringing them in.  Somehow, Rollie got his jack outside.  He adores playing with this toy.  When he goes to his new home he will be taking it with him.  

Rollie prancing in the yard with his new Jack

New Foster dog - Rollie

Erie Shore Greyhound Adoption of Ohio has a Foster boy greyhound named Rollie who has tummy troubles.  I am Fostering him to see if we can get his tummy troubles under control.  Rollie is a white with Brindle spot dog, he looks similar to Ace.  We have never had a dog that looks like Ace as a foster dog, so it will be interesting to see if we get Rollie and Ace confused like we did Macho and Khan.

His foster mom is my friend and a very dedicated greyhound person.  She has fostered probably close to 50 greyhounds and used to run a kennel for another greyhound group.  Since Rollie has been having tummy troubles since he got here, she has taken him to the vet for his tummy troubles a few times.  He has been wormed a couple of times.  The vet recommended B12 injections, which was done, and put him on special dog food.  This special food is hugely expensive, $120 for 6 lbs!  And she told me it is helping but not fixing the problem.  His tummy is not getting better.  

 A dog with tummy problems can wear on a person’s nerves. Getting up to go to work and finding messes throughout the house is no way to start your day.  Nor is coming home to a stinky house and having to clean up the messy poo.  It is bad enough to have to do this occasionally, but it was becoming a daily routine.  We agreed to take him and see if his tummy settles down here.  Sometimes a different environment can cause or fix tummy troubles.

Rollie came in the group that came with Fog.  He has learned how to live in another home.  I don’t allow my dogs on the furniture, I don’t muzzle my dogs, but his current foster mom does.   So he will have a bit of learning to do.  This will be more like getting a returned dog than an off the track dog. 

Rollie has been here for a couple of weeks now.  He has discovered squeaky toys.  He loved them.  Then one day he threw one in the air to catch it and it landed on Macho.  For whatever reason, Rollie decided to take the toy from Macho and a fight ensued.  A single puncture in Rollie’s shoulder and he broke his bottom K9 on Macho’s hard head.  But other than that, and some hurt feelings, he is ok.  Macho was not hurt. Now Rollie only plays with the toys when Macho is not in the room and he only plays for a minute.  I am hoping as he finds no more problems, he begins to play again.

He has only had two “accidents” in the house in the two weeks he has been here.  I suspect this is more of a separation anxiety and not knowing how to wake humans up to go outside in the middle of the night. 

Rollie is a loving, cuddly boy, who just wants to fit in to the pack.  He loves to eat, he pays attention (mostly) to what he is told.  Rollie like Ace, stays out of the way, but is always aware of where the humans are and listens for a call to come.  He is a happy boy who just needs someone of his own.

I think he likes it here