The world is Kal's toy box

Kal at FoG
Kal at his whimsical best
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It's always playtime for Kal.

Kal is a big, strong black dog born March 2, 2014. He wrapped up his 66-race career as Turbo Kal in May and landed in the Friends of Greyhounds kennels in July. And he's been collecting every squeaky toy he can get his jaws around ever since.

In the time I've known Kal, he seems to always be chewing on some pliable squeaky thing. Wait. Let me revise that: He always seems to be chewing on some pliable squeaky thing only if he's not reaching into his neighboring kennels trying to get at the other dog's pliable squeaky things. When we do turnouts, Kal usually always gets distracted on his way out the door by a toy that might be lying on the open floor -- or by one that might be sticking out of one of the other kennels calling Kal's name.



Kal, simply put, is a 75-pound bundle of joyful exuberance. He loves to horse around with us humans, and he enjoys exploring the world from the end of a leash. The only thing that would make him happier is to have a nice toy box to call his own and someone to go out in a yard or a park with him and throw balls he could chase.

Call Michelle or Jerry D. at 954-578-0072 to arrange a play date with Kal. I promise you, he's looking forward to meeting you.

Five black hounds at Friends of Greyhounds
Molly has no interest in whatever caught the attention of Dusty, Stormy, Kal and Kelly.
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LIKE HERDING CATS: I had an idea Sunday while at Friends of Greyhounds to get a group photo of all the black dogs in the kennels and the residence. Have you ever tried to herd cats? It didn't work quite as well as I expected it to.

I got one photo where four of the five were looking in one direction -- the direction opposite from where I was. But even with help from expert handlers such as Jerry D. and Michelle, that was as close as I could get to achieving the perfect five-black-greyhounds portrait.

I also got a chaotic video out of it:

Location: Sunrise, FL, USA

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Highlights

About Dusty and me (Part 2)

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W hen a racing greyhound suffers an injury, like Barts Moondust did in a race in Miami last August, her handlers generally drop her into a kennel for a couple of days to see if the injury heals on its own. If it doesn't, the owner retires the dog and in most cases leaves it up to the handlers to dispose of her. Dusty at Friends of Greyhounds, August 2016 ---------- Her injury was really bad -- obviously enough that her owner gave up on her immediately. I don't know the chain of events between Aug. 13, when she hobbled through her last race, and Aug. 15, when a Friends of Greyhounds blog post says she landed in the FOG kennel in Sunrise, FL. I had been volunteering at FOG for just a few weeks at that point. I reported for duty one day after Aug. 15, and Michelle pointed out the new arrival -- a young, gorgeous shiny black dog in the end kennel with a blue soft cast covering the lower part of her right hind leg past the hock and down to her toes. Michelle told me she ha
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A new Twitter greyhound friend

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Novara relaxing at home ---------- I was half-watching something on Frank's TV on Thursday night when I picked up my Android phone and began scrolling through the replies to a @RoguePOTUSStaff Twitter thread about TrumpCare. Random Tweeter posed a procedural question about what might happen in the Senate, and I just happened to know the answer. So I replied to Random Tweeter's question and continued on. A few minutes later, I got a notification that Random Tweeter replied to my reply twice, so I had a look. His first reply was a followup TrumpCare question, and I replied again. But his second reply was completely unexpected and took my tweeting into a whole new direction for the next hour. Random Tweeter checked out my profile and tweeted me a compliment on my cover photo of Dusty. He mentioned that he also has a rescue greyhound and tweeted me a photo of her. So Random Tweeter (he asked me not to reveal his Twitter handle) and I veered off into a tweet-versation abo
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We're back!

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Hi, all. Dusty and I are back. Let the blogging resume. We went radio silent three months ago after delivering Sly to her foster family. Dusty and I looked up at that point and realized that our buddies at Friends of Greyhounds had decided to close their kennels to new dogs and our favorite gathering haunts would no longer be available to us. Dusty hasn't gotten the hang of doing a proper selfie. ---------- So we decided to take a blogging break, at least for awhile. We did make the mistake of letting our domain expire, which is why you could no longer find the website if you went looking for it. But the domain was still ours to claim, which we did yesterday, about three days before it expired completely. As many of you know, an amendment to the Florida Constitution to ban greyhound racing will be on the ballot in November. Most everyone fully expects it to pass, and racing kennels are starting to move out of the state in anticipation of the shutdown. If it does happen,
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Dusty's romp in the park

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N ot too many things in the world Dusty likes more than a romp at the dog park. I like to get her out for about 30 minutes a couple times a week to let her burn off some energy. It's still easy to get outside in some pleasant weather in the mornings before the sun gets too intrusive. Taking a breather but guarding her prize: She'll grab that ball and play keep-away for a few minutes if I make a grab for it ---------- I used to buy cheap tennis balls for her. But I've discovered she loves those squeaky rubber spike balls -- even though the squeakies don't last for more than about three minutes. After those things die, you can hear the air making compression sounds inside the ball when she chews on it. But she doesn't mind -- she loves chewing those things, and the balls themselves seem indestructible. Supposedly, the spikes massage her teeth and gums and provide some dental-health benefit. I dropped a link to one for sale at Amazon.com at the end of this
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Speedy's brand new world

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Lily shot this photo of Dusty, Speedy and Luna. ---------- Speedy officially has been initiated. The 8-year-old Macau import hasn't yet moved into his permanent home with Dusty and me. But he got a taste this morning of what his new life is going to be. Dawn and her girls drove up this morning to meet us for a leash-walk outing at Plantation Heritage Park and got a chance to see Speedy take in all kinds of new sights and sounds and smells. Lily and Rosie chilling with the hounds in a shelter area at the park ---------- Speedy's having quite an awakening. Dusty and I got him out three times last week for a stroll around the block in Friends of Greyhounds' neighborhood in Sunrise. He remained in constant attention, total focus, during those walks. Dusty and I got quite a workout trying to contain him -- he pulled on that leash with everything he had to get to the next place as soon as he could. He wheezed and coughed practically the entire time -- the the ma
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