Mercury might steal your heart

Mercury on a leash walk
Mercury out on a leash walk
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It's easy to see on first sight that Mercury is a beautifully sculpted, classic greyhound. If you commissioned an artist to paint a portrait of the perfect hound, this is the picture you would get. He's solid red, long, lean and muscular with that same face you've seen on every greyhound portrait ever.

Mercury, born April 27, 2013, landed at Friends of Greyhounds on Aug. 15 after a career of 146 races. I met him a day or two later and caught myself staring in admiration at his awesome beauty. 

His racing name was JJ's Fandango. Jerry D., Michelle and I were tossing ideas for new names for him and Oshkosh Fella, who arrived at the same time. Fella was easy. But we thought Fandango was a little off. Of course, Fandango made me immediately think of Bohemian Rhapsody. Obviously, we couldn't name him Queen, so I threw out "Freddie." We did settle on that, but Michelle resisted the "ie" spelling that Freddie Mercury used as being too feminine. That's when Jerry D. blurted out "Mercury." It was a natural. Not sure why it took so long for us to get there. But we did.

Dusty and Molly in the Kia
Dusty and Molly take a road trip to Sunrise
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With everything going on since Mercury arrived, I hadn't had much of a chance in the past five or six weeks to get to know the guy. Michelle had told me a couple of times about his uniquely athletic skills when he's been out running in the FoG yard. But I had not seen him out there more than once or twice and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

I loaded Dusty and Molly in the Kia Koach to drive over to FoG this morning. I wanted to give the girls a quick run with the house dogs. And I wanted to get Mercury on a lead to spend some time with him on a walk around the neighborhood before writing this post.

Before Mercury and I went on our walk, I helped Michelle with the noon turnouts. We got out in the yard with Mercury, Fella and Kal, and I decided to shoot a video just to see what happened. And it happened. Two small dogs live on the other side of FoG's back fence, and every now and then, they  get into a running romp with the greyhounds. And this is what happened -- I got a chance to see what Michelle was going on about over Mercury:



Is that impressive or what?

I did get Mercury on a leash shortly after that for a walk around the FoG neighborhood. He was great, as expected. He was all over the place at first, thrilled for the rare chance to get out and explore. But once the initial excitement passed, he was a perfect citizen on that leash, letting me take him wherever I wanted to go.

Mercury, as have all the other dogs currently in the FoG kennels, has not cat-tested well. But he is a friendly guy. He does love attention from humans, as most all greys do.

If you're in the market for a sculpted, athletic hound who you'd love to show off to your friends, Mercury just might be your guy. If you have a yard for him to run in, he will put on quite a show for you.

Call Jerry D. or Michelle at 954-578-0072 and arrange to meet Mercury. You will be amazed.

Jagger
Jagger
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FINGERS CROSSED FOR JAGGER: Jagger, the 8-year-old who roomed with Dusty and I for a few days earlier in the week, was back in his FoG kennel Friday afternoon. Jerry D. told me he's been pouting about it, which was expected after he got a nice break from the routine.

But he got a visitor today -- a Boca Raton couple who brought their senior blue to Sunrise to meet Jagger and Logan. They have been fostering a young greyhound who is expected to go to a permanent home in the next couple of days, and they decided to replace him by adopting an older dog. They met Jagger and fell in love with him and told Michelle they want to take him home.

They took an application home to fill out, and told us they expect to be ready to have Jagger delivered in a few days. So unless something unexpected happens, that great boy will have a permanent home soon.

Location: Sunrise, FL, USA

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