My Greyhound part 1 : Why a Greyhound ?

Ever since we adopted a retired greyhound in april, I have been asked all sorts of questions. So here's the story on why we chose to get a tall, skinny, funny dog and how we got him.

My gilfriend and I always wanted a dog but since we were not spending enough time at home because of work and other social outings we were always postponing the "dog project". We thought that maybe someday the day would come that we would be free enough to care for a 4 legged furry thing. Well that someday came around last winter.

With a new job that enables me to work from home a couple days a week and a lot less social commitements, we started looking at what kind of dog would fit us best. We agreed that the top criterias needed to be : Quiet, easy going, gentle with children and grown-up and finally medium to large size. We also agreed that we were going to get a rescued dog. Yes puppies are nice but there are so many dogs that need a second chance in kennels everywhere.

So we slowy started looking at what was available at our local recue web sites without really ''falling in love'' with any available dogs. A bit later, in march we were attending the St-Patrick's parade in Montréal and then, between two floats, was the crew from greyhound recue Québec and we tought : yeah how about a retired greyhound ?

After the parade we got back to the house and started reading books and articles on the web about those gracefull dogs. After several hours of reading and watching videos like this one on youtube we were sold to the breed. Then a quick phone call to Shirley from greyhound recue Québec and a long and interesting visit to her house to meet her, her husband Ernie and most of all their 2 greyhounds, Dara and Sergio, got us hooked. They took the time to explaine how the dogs lived and how they are treated during their racing carreer, to gave us an idea of what to expect. They told us the dos and don'ts to start the dog's retirement on the good "paw".

You can quickly see that these guys love greyhounds, they go through so much trouble to save a handfull of racing greyhounds every month and yet they don't make any money off of this. They just do it for the dogs.

So of course we signed the papers and the waiting began. A week later, a phone call from Shirley saying that a "big fawn boy" fitting our profile was available. We were to come pick him up next week-end !! So we spent all week going from pet stores to pet stores gathering the things we needed : food, bed, nail clipper, id tag, treats, doggy tooth brush, etc.

Then saturday came and we finally saw our "big fawn boy" coming out of the van ! He came along with 4 or 5 other "ex-racers" and we immediatly understood why he was called BIG !! He was at least 2 inches taller then all the others !! Still suprised by how big he was, we brought all the dogs to a fenced area where they could finally stretch their legs after the long drive. One by one the volunteers inspected every inch of the dogs, cleaned the ears, gave them a bath, a flea and worm medication. And then finally it's time for a little walk before the car ride home, where we were to discover how bizarre and fun it is to care for a retired racer ...

Stay tuned for part #2 : The first week !!!