Consistently, predictably, dependably, unwaveringly ERRATIC

We (mostly I) have been stalking the greyhound adoption sites for possibilities and wondering about the right time. I have also been fantasising perhaps a little too much about what the next hound will be like and telling myself I need to stop doing that and actually meet a real dog (oh, that sounds weird.) GAP is having an adoption day nearby in mid-February so I jumped to sign up for that and decided to get the ball rolling with an application to the adoption group Mr Nosey's foster carer, Tina, started as well. This was last night so I thought, given today was Australia Day, then we have the weekend, I might get a call early next week about the applications. Maybe we'll have a new greyhound sometime in February? It can take longer with cat-friendlies, though.

TODAY, Tina calls me and says they're picking up a cat-friendly boy from his trainer on Saturday to go into foster care but would we like to take him directly instead?

We don't even have a dog bed anymore!

Fair enough, he's going to the foster carer and we're going to meet him next weekend and, uh, he might be home very soon?

We'll go shopping for a dog bed tomorrow.

A CERTAIN SOMEBODY has figured out how to delicately push open the low screen blocking the archway into the living room.

A CERTAIN SOMEBODY has been found on his favourite sofa when he was not meant to be in that room.

First time Mum thought she must not have closed the screen properly last time she was in there (and greyhounds can eel their way through remarkably narrow spaces.*) But this morning, who was on the sofa again but that handsome brindle hound, Mr Nosey! And we know the screen was shut last night! And he did it again today!

Cheeky bugger. But he knows we're on to him so let's see what he tries next.

*Unless they're like Miss Shadow and flatly refuse to deal with narrow spaces, leaving us perplexed (especially when our cattle dog would see any slightly open door as an invitation and barge on through.) It took time, training and help from The Boyo but she improved greatly. She also disliked going under things or having her tail touched. When we saw some footage of greyhounds being loaded into starting boxes we went "... oh. She must had some training." I also came across a thread on a rescue greys forum and discovered that a lot of rescues hate half-open doors and gates and dislike anything touching their backsides. She still prefers doors to be more than half-open - but she'll she follow Mr Nosey through a narrower gap! She hasn't tried for the living room yet ..

Are greyhounds a fandom? (They're a cult; we have t-shirts.) I feel like I've witnessed a fandom collision. J.K. Rowling has a rescue grey too ...

Mum came home from a birdwatchers' Christmas party tonight (she think she'll go back), was greeted with great joy by the dogs and I noted as I patted Miss Shadow that she'd somehow managed to get a bit wet over her rear half - but it was raining outside. A little while later, I happened to look at my hands and thought, 'Holy crap, was my nose bleeding?!' There were faint smears of dried blood on my hands. No, no, it wasn't me ...

Miss Shadow had happy tail!

Only a tiny bit of skin off the very tip of her tail but it resulted in very fine blood splatter all over the front hall, my dress, Mum's dress, Miss Shadow's rear half, the kitchen ... once we started looking, it seemed never-ending! And unlike The Boyo's nosebleeds which were spectacular but lowdown and fairly localised, Miss Shadow's happy helicopter tail saw blood hit the level of the light switches ... and higher ... above my head!

As we were cleaning it up, Mum suddenly laughed and wondered what a forensics crew would make of the splatter pattern.

The front door needed cleaning anyway, it turns out.

She seems better now but poor Miss Shadow was acting listless and lethargic today* and we think she was still dehydrated from yesterday. It was hot and humid today and Mr Nosey didn't seem too lively either. Although when Miss Shadow decided against her lunchtime chicken frame, Mum had to chase him around the central flower bed several times before getting him to drop it. Poor boy, he thought his luck was in.

*Mum and I had a discussion on nuances - I consider those words to have different meaning, listless more mental, lethargic more physical and it seems the dictionary and Mum agree but I wonder how many people use them interchangeably?

Had friends over today - we've been doing catch-ups more often this year which is great. Pip is often frantically busy but comes when she can and the four of us sit and talk and drink tea and sometimes I bake things or we just have fruit and we might watch movies or talk and talk for hours.

So today we had tea and strawberries and birthday cake and Rena gave me this beautiful tea cup for my birthday and Kitt brought me a book on the history of female sailors which looks fascinating. And we finally gave her her wedding present. Kept forgetting, whoops.

Oh and an achievement which must be recorded - Miss Shadow got up on the sofa of her own volition. Yes, the hounds are allowed on the sofas now (it's Mum's fault.) Mr Nosey is right up there with his head on a cushion at every opportunity but Miss Shadow tried a few times, was deeply dubious and gave up. She loves the futon in my study but I think the sofa is too squishy and slippery and she finds the footing too uncertain.

But today, I managed to get her up beside me twice. As soon as I stood up though, she was off as well. But later Mum and I looked in and not only was Mr Nosey sprawled over one sofa (of course) but Miss Shadow was on the other. Still looking dubious about it though.

I never thought I'd be encouraging a dog to get on the sofa. And since when does a greyhound need active encouragement to take over the sofa anyway?

(Kitt called us dog nerds today. Well yes, but her husband just got a tattoo of a cat so they can't talk.)

I continue to feel like hell and decided not to go at Nephew #2's birthday party on Saturday due to a vicious headache (I would have been willing to put in a brief appearance but Mum wanted to stay longer, so she went by herself.) It's supposed to cool down somewhat tomorrow which I'm looking forward to! But however lousy I may feel on Thursday, I am determined to make into the city for a couple of hours to attend an anti-greyhound racing rally, Gone Are The Dogs.

When I adopted Miss Shadow I was ambivalent about greyhound racing; I didn't know much about it. Obviously there were some lousy owners who dumped their dogs but given all the dogs of other breeds that wind up in pounds, those owners were hardly unique. Now that I know more about the 'sport', the racing industry in NSW and Australia and worldwide, and the ghastly abuse of so many of these gentle, trusting dogs, I am adamantly anti-racing.

Some information from Gone Are the Dogs:

•Over the last 10 years there have been approximately 90 000 greyhounds born in NSW. In 2013 there were only 2550 greyhounds registered as companion animals. Approximately 6100 were registered as racing greyhounds. This means that over 80 000 greyhounds are GONE.

These figures DO NOT include litters disposed of from accidental matings or puppies unsuitable for racing. These numbers are simply unknown. Greyhounds are usually disposed of because they won’t chase, they are too slow or as a result of injuries.

•Greyhound Freedom collect death and injury statistics from Australian tracks and have compiled the information below. Keep in mind GRNSW only have stewards reports available from 14 of the 34 tracks and GRNSW have stopped reporting deaths on the tracks. WA do not record deaths and SA do not record injury types. This means the number of deaths and injuries is considerable higher.

From Jan 2012 - Sept 2013 :
•321 greyhounds died at the track as a result of injuries from racing.
•An additional 532 greyhounds suffered broken bones at a track from racing. Most of these will have been put to sleep at the track or days later.
•The number one injury that resulted in the death of a greyhound from racing is a broken hock. Greyhounds also die from heart attacks, spinal injuries, head traumas, pulmonary oedemas and reasons ‘unknown’.
•There were 32 073 injury events.

A recent article from the Sydney Morning Herald : Large numbers of dead greyhounds are being donated for veterinary teaching - a practice that reveals many healthy ex-racing dogs are put down because they suffer from ''slow runners or non-chasers disease''.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/destruction-of-greyhounds-distresses-vet-students-20140201-31tvt.html#ixzz2sGXHm2GI

More information from Gone Are the Dogs Facebook page

Greyhound Action Australasia

Saving Wilma - slow, broken, old, Greyhound Racing's dirty little secrets talks about the recovery of a traumatised New Zealand greyhound with information on NZ and Australian action. At the moment her owner is also taking about galgos (Spanish Greyhounds) for World Galgo Day (which was February 1). Be warned there are so some very distressing images on the galgo website and on Wilma's page right now. (The worst - BE WARNED - is the photo of two hanged galgos and the sadistic fuckhead owners grinning at the camera, giving a thumbs-up.) The plight of the galgos is horrific and there is very little animal welfare culture in Spain to help them. Dumped and abused galgos are more likely to be seen as vermin than as animals in need of help. GRIN (Galgo Rescue International Network) has some shocking photos and articles but also some happy rescues to share.

We may not hang greyhounds to death here but they're legally killed by bolt gun in the UK, shot, dumped, have their ears cut off to prevent tattoo ID, turn up at the pound with every rib showing, drugged to win then left to deal with withdrawal ...

Miss Shadow and Mr Nosey got lucky. Miss Shadow never even made it to the track but was surrendered for adoption along with one of her brothers. We looked up her litter - out of eight pups only three made it to the track at all. One of them only raced once, I believe. Mr Nosey raced ten times with three thirds, no wins and got out with no apparent injuries before his fourth birthday. His sire has fathered hundreds of litters. These two are very much in the minority. I'm so glad they're here - but where are all the rest?

To sign up for the rally - http://www.gonearethedogs.com/rally-information/
To sing a pledge of support - http://www.gonearethedogs.com/pledge-support/
To donate - http://www.gonearethedogs.com/donate/
To change you Facebook or Twitter profile to advertise the rally - http://www.gonearethedogs.com/help/

It's kind of sad that I am so excited about the temperature dropping to 26C tomorrow (please!) but it's been over 30C all week and it gets very wearing. And the dogs get bored. They've had a couple of late evening walks but that's not much.

They didn't get a proper walk today but they did get an outing and exercise. We took them to get their nails trimmed at a local pet supply store that also has grooming services. Yes, I could do it myself but I gave up because I was afraid I was making Miss Shadow nervous about it through my nervousness! 1) Her nails are black so it would be easy to overclip. 2) My hands aren't that strong and I wasn't very sure in the clip. 3) Years of witnessing Lady Muck's nailclipping phobia and the results.

(She had high-set, very, very tough toenails which did not wear down and absolutely needed regular trimming. She HATED having her feet handled, by anyone. Eventually she required full sedation for said trimming because the vet was afraid she'd thrash herself into a heart attack.)

$10 per dog for the professional groomer to do it? Yes, please! Miss Shadow was nervous the first time because there was another dog there (just been groomed) who was barking, but she behaved well. This time, they were both a bit nervous until they realised it was just a nailtrim and then they were fine and happy to accept cuddles from the groomer.

Then it was home to a slightly cooler garden and bathtime for dogs. They both wore expressions that said they were Resigned To Their Fate but that didn't stop them from shaking as soon as they were rinsed off!

Mr Nosey excelled himself in zoomies, rolls, rubs, scratches, scritches and general exuberance (Miss Shadow mostly sulked at us) afterwards including his specialty 'booty shake.' I've never seen a dog shake in sections before but he tends to shake his front half, then his rear half and often adds an extra butt and tail wiggle as well, the aforementioned booty shake. He hasn't been doing it as much the last couple of weeks but the first time we gave him a bath, the shake was so prolonged we just cracked up. And he was in fine form this time too!

First trial of the spiralizer was successful! BLT zucchini noodles (I didn't roast the tomatoes, just chopped them and cooked them for a bit with the garlic.)

We put up the Christmas tree tonight. Or rather, Mum brought the various components up from the garage, then watched me figure out the new tree lights and decorate the tree, with occasional advice. (I remember when I was way too small to do any of these things! So weird.) We played the new Christmas CD I'd bought for this - Katherine Jenkins' This Is Christmas. Highly enjoyable.

*
( Almost to the end of the Finding A New Dog Quest! )

It's not quite official yet but it's looking that way. We've got a new dog. And tomorrow I will tell you more about him and post some photos. Because he is really very cute!

When we arrived at the Pet Festival, we soon encountered someone we'd heard about but not met - a neighbour of one of Mum's aquarobics classmates. This woman, C, and her husband, N, started fostering greyhounds for GR with their whippet and cat earlier this year and when Mum's classmate told her about their first grey, we immediately looked her up - and when told about us, they tried to look up Miss Shadow but she never made it online.

So it was quite funny to meet her in person, with her gorgeous little whippet and latest foster (possible forever!) hound. Since we were looking for a cat-friendly hound, she was the perfect person to talk to about who was a possibility from GR. We encountered a couple of other greys and their people as well - greyhounds love other sighthounds. We headed over to the GR stall after awhile and C called her husband to tell him to head over with their temporary foster, a gentle light brindle boy who would be a possible match. We met up with the head of GR, Peter, the one I'd been emailing with (we'd met at a couple of trivia nights previously) and discussed meeting C and N at the overflow kennels the next day where there were several cat-friendlies and a couple more to be tested. There was one other at the stall, a huge black boy, Bob but he was probably 38-40kg and that was just a bit much as far as Mum was concerned. As much as I like big dogs, even I found him a bit big!

We also had cuddles with several other greys at the stall, including a blue brindle boy who had lost a large part of his tail to 'happy tail' - wagging his tail and smacking it against hard surfaces, causing bleeding that is very hard to stop!

They had a blue shell pool as well, so the dogs could stand in it and cool off and we managed to coax Miss Shadow to dip her feet in. We've since bought one ourselves and she's tried 'digging' in the water on a couple of hot days. It looks hilarious.

Eventually we moved on, since the festival was about to finish and we found the GAP stall - and Miss Shadow was so happy to see L, the coordinator, bouncing up, putting her front paws on the counter, generally looking delighted. We were all quite surprised since she hadn't seen L since we took her to Winterfest back in ... June? GAP had a stall. And Miss Shadow hadn't been in their system very long either. But it was very sweet.

We talked to L about a new grey as well and she said they did have one male they thought would test cat-friendly - but he was mostly white and after years with dalmatians, we have decided against further white dog hair!

On our way out, we stopped at the AWDRI stall (I check their FB regularly for cuteness) and thank goodness they didn't have any blue heelers there (tears!) but we did get to cuddle with Pudding, the red heeler puppy from HQ and a little chocolate kelpie puppy who'd had a terrible start in life but was obviously being very well cared for now.

And then we were heading out, with Miss Shadow trotting along happily, sniffing at everything and seeming just fine, with prospect of getting another dog suddenly just a day away ...