Adjustments

In all the different dogs we have met through our grey-play adventures I have never met one that could scare Kassa off a ball.  Kassa was a little ball fetching machine.  This has always been our thing.  He was so consistent that I could probably have made money exercising all the dogs that love to chase him when he starts running.
When I went looking for a second greyhound I thought having another ball oriented guy would be great.  Enter Ricky Bobby.  Well if you follow the blog you may know that Ricky is a bit bigger than Kassa.  He is also every single bit as ball motivated.  We had one infield collision a bit ago and since then my ball fetching dynamo Kassa has lost interest when Ricky is in the field.  I admit that this makes me a little sad.  Kassa runs out a few times for the ball, but even when he beats Ricky to the punch he backs off because he is checking for Ricky barreling down on him.  Today I decided that, since Kassa isn't getting as much running in, I would change things up.  Ricky was having fun with fetch, but I brought treats as well and worked on recalls with Kassa.   There is no competition on a recall as he always gets the reward. This way they both got a some good running in.

Kassa running in for a treat.

Ricky running in with a mangled ball.

Even though there have been adjustments, I think Kassa is content with the arrangement.  When new family members are introduced we all have to make adjustments.

Guest Starring Shep

Every once in a while Kassa and Ricky's greyhound adventures involve some wonderful non-grey breeds.  Introducing Shep!   Shep is a Shepherd/(chow?) mix that was rescued, after wandering a Nashville neighborhood for a while, but is looking for a forever home.  As you can see he cleaned up great!  He weighs 58lbs and as you can see he is hound friendly.  Shep is a robust little guy with a friendly disposition.   Be careful because he will quickly worm his way into your heart.  If you are looking for a great companion Shep could be the one for you!

Shep ran up and down the field and of course the grey boys had to show him how fast they are.  He handles it well though and they all got along great!

Ricky and Shep playing a bit of cat and mouse.

Shep and Ricky had a lot of fun.  You can see Kassa in the background.  He must have found something extra smelly.  If you are looking for an addition to your family, please consider Shep.

Beat the Heat

Last week we went from an uncharacteristically cold snap of weather to a beat the heat type of situation.  Therefore on Sunday we decided to have our grey play meet up in the AM.. 9 AM to be precise.  It was also a good opportunity to discover who of our group were left behind after the Rapture.  Not everyone was there.. hmmm.... Much to my dismay I ended up being 15-20 min late... again.  It seems that whenever I am wrapping up what I am doing and head for the door there is always one last detail, question or concern that inevitably delays my departure. It makes me crazy as I prefer to be early but what are you going to do? As Kassa and Ricky and I drove up to the field we saw the other hounds racing around.  I was worried that by the time we got in there, everyone would be all tuckered out.   Luckily they got a second wind a little later, so our boys got to run too.  You have to watch for heat exhaustion with these boys.  I recently learned an interesting statistic: "A greyhound produces around 100Kcals or 100,000 watts of waste heat energy during a 30 second race, sufficient to bring 600mL of tap water to the boil in around 2 minutes."  That's a pretty good indication that you have to make sure these guys can get cooled down quickly when they exert themselves.  Luckily the field has some nicely shaded areas and we keep the water flowing.  I think a wading pool may be in order.  We had 7 dogs (including one beautiful  Shepperd mix who happens to be looking for a home) and no cameras there.  It was a fine time.

That evening as the sun was going down I decided to take them for a walk up the street.  As we approached the end of the lane, the ears went up and the leashes went tight.  Was it the neighbors cat flirting with destiny again?.. No.  There at the end of the driveway a fat little armadillo was venturing into range.  Ricky and Kassa started pulling as they sang "Arrr-madillo Armadillo.. Rock me Armadillo." and then sniffy wildly at the ground where he had been.  The little guy went trotting up the street in the direction of our normal walk.  When we turned to follow my boys couldn't believe it and for the first time ever it took real effort of restraint on my part.  The armadillo was savvy enough to detour onto my neighbors property until the duet-ting duo had past.  Another day gone by where my camera was not where it was supposed to be.

The Rapture

In case you haven't heard, tomorrow is the day. Thats it.  The beginning of the end is at 6:00pm and the almighty evidently cares a great deal about our human conventions because he is going to observer the local timezones.  Now I understand that many people truly believe in the concept of the rapture, and I respect that.  What I find amazing is that anyone thinks they could legitimately predict the time of said event based on some pretty funcky metaphorical math, and actually make life choices based on that prediction.  One of the most entertaining things that have come out of this are the after the rapture pet care programs that have arisen.  http://www.aftertherapturepetcare.com/ is one such service.   Exploitive.. perhaps.. brilliant.. absolutely.  However I think they all have it a little backwards.  You see if any living creature deserves to go into a heavenly afterlife, it is dogs.  I'm just not sure how many slots there will be left for the rest of us.  What I predict is that if a rapture occurs, thousands and thousands of dogs will suddenly disappear at 6:00 pm and the rest of us will be left holding their poop bags.  So hug your hounds tonight, who knows what tomorrow will bring.

New Guest

I was driving out my lane at lunch today.  Low and behold I had a guest sitting at the end of the lane.  I was pretty impressed that he climbed his way up onto the divider.  I grabbed my camera to capture the moment.  As I drove by this surprisingly agile dude jumped off the barrier and into the shallow ditch below.  I double checked he didn't land upside down but he was on his way. Clever guy.   I hope he has made a home in my ditch with the bull frogs. A little nature keeps things entertaining.

Willing but not able.

The boys have been settling in together nicely over this past month.  I have not been running them as much in favor of longer walks daily.  I think the bonding time during walking is good for them.  On Sunday however, one of the grey-play couples was nice enough to have people over to their house.  They have a very nice big back yard and it was pleasant to sit in the lawn chairs and chit chat while the dogs explored.  We had the added bonus of having free seats to an Air show.   I have to say that after that I can guarantee that none of these dogs are noise phobic.  F-18s (I believe) were flying stunts, looping, falling out of the sky and then kicking their jets in with a boom you could feel in your chest.

The dogs were completely unaffected.  There was one thing that did affect our wily boys though.  A foster greyhound was in residence and she was in heat.  I guess they have to wait until after they are finished before any procedures are done.  Now I should state for the record that no dogs were impregnated nor in danger of impregnation during the making of this blog entry.  After the backlash against a facebook naughty doggy pic posted by lifewithdogs, I think that is worth while mentioning.  While the female had not been fixed yet, the boys found themselves ill-equipped for the task.  This mere fact however did not stop the boys from trying.  They sensed a female in need and wanted to help reduce her stress.  Kassa did a good deal of stiffing but not much else.  Ricky must have gotten a hold of a copy of the Kama Sutra, because the angles he was approaching the problem from had nothing to do with procreation and so must have purely been aimed at pleasure.  The rock star of the group was Tequila Lee who, with perfect form and grip, attacked the problem like a pro.  Now when ever this activity started we separated them but I can honestly say that the boys really enjoyed this outing.