lifeguard on duty

The girls love nothing more than visiting our friends and taking Lunes along for the ride. Shara and her hubby are big dog lovers and big lovers of life and whatever they do their dogs do too.  Whenever we go over to visit, we take the dog too.

We stopped by the other day and went for a dip.  Luna loves water but she is clueless in a pool. In the ocean where the depth increases slowly she does great but in a pool where you have a sudden drop off she is clueless and almost kills herself so she has to wear a life jacket. She will literally jump in to the deep end and due to the nature of this beast when she leaps she leaps far and will end up in the middle of the pool going glug, glug, glug.

such a brave hound on the first step....oy!

Hound decided the hot tub with its sheer drop would be fun...Lily to the rescue

Ill jump in right here. and splash.

everybody knows that you needs to shower after a swim and that includes one very unimpressed Lunes!

I had to get one more post in before the end of the month. So much going on and I have no time.

one year later

One year ago, last Friday, the hound had been with us for an entire year. In many ways it seems like for EVER ago that we got her and in others, just a couple of months. But it is what it is and the not so little pooch has wrangled her way front and centre.

Spring break just happened to start on Friday so we packed a picnic, hopped into the car and headed south....way south, Key West south. We stopped whenever anyone wanted to see something, stopped for lunch and and stopped a couple of times to walk the hound on the beach.

For an impromptu trip it was fabulous. No time constraints, and just us.

Rosie decided selfies with Houndish were in order

A quick stop in Islamorada to dip their toes.

nothing but sea for miles

Little chap caught a fish and was so proud but his dad said he had to throw it back.

The old 7 Mile Bridge.

Bahia Honda State Park......Irma was not kind to the Keys and this park was hit very hard

Look at the colour of the water.....sadly we couldn't get to the beach. Blame Hurricane Irma

Swoon

By chance she wore a blue/green collar...it made for gorgy photos

One of my favourite snaps of the day

better get swimming girls

and I repeat, Blame the Hurricane

It's a celebration, you need to have some ice cream

Oh looky, a secluded beach area

what do you think?

Alrighty then, you approve

and with that she went completely kittiwompas.

Rosie was the target of her fun and games

ready or not, here I come

good fun

not sure who had more fun

our favourite kayaking spot

out of control doggy on the bench

peek a boo I see you too

it was starting to get buggy so we called it a day.

I think she will always be nervous but as long as all of us are together she is really good at trying new things and going into the unknown.

meet the hounds

On Sunday we took the hound to a greyhound meet and greet. It was at a local ranch and the pups were in a corral and able to run around like, well greyhounds.  We found out at this meet up which was organised by the rescue that we got Luna from that they will no longer be rescueing Greyhounds. Thank goodness we acted when we did.

When I said that all of the hounds got to run around well of course there is an exception to that rule and that would be our girl. She isn't very sociable at all. She siad hi to the dogs and greeted every single one that came throught the gate but then she would hide under the table. She was content and not stressed so that's an improvement.

Here I am guarding the grass under this table

I'm quite happy

ohhh looky at me I dug a fookin great big hole!!

well me and 2 others but last time I was here I had to dig it alone and it is the same exact spot.

zzzzzzzz she looks like an abused specimen here but I can assure she does have fur and its very shiny.

And as 2 dozen hounds paraded, raced, rooed, cajolled and carried on Luna fell asleep under a tree. ha ha ha ha ha ha
When we came home she had to have a bath, not because of the dirt but because of all the slobber on her from the other hounds. She was utterly disgusting and frankly quite crusty. blech.

this photo has nothing to do with todays post, it just makes me laugh. 

learning how to dog

I haven't had a dog since I was 16 ~ in case you aren't aware, that was quite some time ago. My parents had one after that but I had already moved away and I wasn't very fond of him since he growled the first time we met. I have managed to forget all the important stuff, like nail clipping, bathing, flea and tick control, heart worm meds, so much so that I am sure that we didn't do any of this. Lily informs me I must be wrong. Note to self, ask the daddio. I know they went to the vet regularly or the vet would come to us, I also know they were very well cared for so Lily is probably right.

This past fortnight has been one of lots of learning, specifically learning about greyhounds, who are, without a shadow of a doubt, quite unique and very very comical.

Luna doesn't like to walk, she really doesn't. I have been on forum after forum reading about this and all I can do is throw my hands in the air and say, when she is ready she will but in the meantime she keeps freezing. I have better luck than Lily as I just take my phone with me and give myself plenty P L E N T Y of time. When she freezes I read and then she gets bored so off we go, sometimes only 2 steps.

This was this morning. I think the entire neighbourood heard our laughter.

Lily hid her face as if you wouldn't know it was her.

I can't even look without laughing. Don't you just love how Luna is all relaxed? Rosie is in her jammies as it was very early when we left but then the sun came up. oh my.

The first time I picked her up she went as stiff as a board and it was like carrying a baby giraffe but after a second, or two, she decided it was lovely and she went all limp. Another note to self: dog is nuts.


This conversation was overheard by yours truly.

Child L: I'm going to check her for ticks.
Me: she is up to date on all her meds;
Child L: OMG I've found a tick, I've found a tick.
Child R: urghh That's not a tick that's her nipple!!!
Child L: oh, no wonder she was so resistant to me pulling it off.
Me: OMG you tried to pull her nipple off?
Child R: Yeap.
She wasn't injured, just her dignity. I gave child L an anatomy lesson and saved her from phantom tick scares.

Luna had her first vet visit this week and she is up to date on everything, they took out her dissolving stitches cos they hadn't dissolved and gave her a clean bill of health. She is much to skinny as she is still at her racing weight so at 4 yrs old she is on puppy chow as it is very high in calories.

She also had her her first bath and I can't say she was overly impressed.

YUCK!
Please excuse the old gate in the background I need to get to the tip

Why are you doing this to me?

I repeat, why are you doing this?
Oh my look at that fancy new gate that I BUILT...yes I did!

those eyes melt hearts

She appears to be getting smaller by the second, maybe she shrank!

Lily is so good with her, Rosie too but Lily is bossy so Ro got to hold the lead

And here are some random photos cos I like them.

always sleeping

furry little toes

Lily calls her Pirate due to her snaggle toof

Nice and clean after her bath and looking playful

Those ears! I call them her play ears. 

When she has a mad five minutes you better watch out cos she hauls arse around here, Lily calls it the zoomies, I call it time to dive for cover. She reminds me, in many ways, of the Weimeraner we had when I was growing up, she was my favourite favourite dog.

Tonight the girls are at their dads and someone isn't going to bed, she is keeping a vigil, I fear this is going to be a VERY long night.

meet the hound.

This post will probably shock some of you and appall a few others but it is what it is and we are thrilled to bits.

For quite some time I have seriously been contemplating getting a dog. No one is more surprised by this than me, myself and I. I blame a lot of it on my clients and their wonderful dogs and of course the fact that growing up we ALWAYS had a dog and I loved it. But as with all good stories there is a but and this but was I was never sure if I could be the strong alpha type due to being bitten and that underlying fear.

I researched and researched and I knew we needed something small as we don't have a big garden....but I don't like little dogs. More people are bitten by small dogs than big ones. So on and on we went. I kept being sent to greyhound pages in my research. You can fill out, the perfect pet for you, questionnaires and they guide you through some choices.

Greyhounds are the least aggressive dog...hmmm. Retired racers don't like a lot of exercise as they are done with that nonsense and if you can find a hound that is being retired the chances are it will be put to sleep because frankly it's not worth anything anymore to it's owner. Greys are people pleasers and very very sensitive. You never raise your voice to a grey hound you lower you tone and use the hand signal for stop. And finally they are perfect apartment pets, well I don't live in an apartment but if they are fine there they will be fine here. Here we have every kind of rescue known to man, in fact I didn't even know there were so many breeds of dog so I looked for a greyhound rescue, and found a lot of them. We have more dog racing in Florida than in any other state. sad sad sad.

A few weeks ago I joined the Friends of Greyhound newsletter and when they had an event we attended. There must have been 30 hounds in a huge run and I wasn't even nervous, it was weird. We talked to people and dogs kept coming up to us for a lean and again I was fine with it. The more we talked to owners the more I realised this dog was for us. There were some available dogs for adoption there, all rescued racers. We met a dog called LuLu and she sealed the deal. We filled out an application. We had to read a a manual and pass a test. she was delivered to the house and the fun began.

In her 4 years of life LuLu had never seen a house EVER. She walked in quite happily, with Michelle from the rescue and promptly smacked in to a sliding glass door. Michelle whipped from her pocket some post-it notes and placed them at greyhound eye level. Then we toured the house and tweaked some more things. If you have never seen a mirror it is terrifying as there is a dog and you can't get to it and it's confusing. Never had toys or love or anything..sad sad sad. And now she has a name forever and it is Luna.

We have gone online and matched her tattoos with her racing history and know so much about her. She was raced heavily. She must have been good as she seems to have raced more than most although her stats didn't prove so impressive.

Things went well the first night, she slept in her crate with us close by but then, then there was a horrid evil bad storm and she freaked. And it was horrid but we have all recovered but as I am typing this another one is rolling in and she is terrified. A client gave her a thundershirt so I put it on her but possibly not fast enough. She is upstairs and has no plans on coming down again....EVER. I have learnt since that first night that it is best to ignore her when she gets like this but to offer her a safe space.

One step forward, 2 steps back.

This is Lunas impression of a statue. What she is doing is actually called freezing or statueing. It's a greyhound thing. We can be out for a walk and all of a sudden she hits the brakes and nothing, NOTHING can get her going again. You can't pull on their necks but you can push from behind but Luna just goes in circles when we do this to her. The other day I was stuck in one spot for 45 minutes. It will get better with time but right now she scares easily. Yesterday was a huge improvement in the statue arena. 

Shortly after arriving hence the panting, trying out her bed.

her nose is a little crooked, apparently her racing muzzle was too small. grrrr

greyhounds are typically very large, not Luna

This is called roaching, it's how greyhounds like to sleep. Hah they look like dead cockroaches.

I can't put in to words the joy she has brought to the girls

Greyhounds are complicated and it's funny. They get scared easily and look for love all the time. They cannot sit but they can lie. They don't typically lie on their chests. their thyroids are different than other dogs as are their temperatures. Their skin is super thin and they lack oil. They do not smell doggy and barely shed. She can get injured very easily. She is a 60lb toddler.

 So before you say, she is a tie and we won't be able to travel, YEP, you are right and we are OK with this. I didn't know how much we needed her.

We are still waiting for her tail to wag but she is starting to greet us as we walk in to the room. Her life on the track has been void of many things but I can look at her and tell her from the depths of my soul, that it's only good stuff from her on out.

Welcome Lunabellabunababoonbutt~ we think you are all that and a cup of tea.