Dusty and me

Einstein hanging out in the FoG backyard ---------- Einstein, one of the 2-year-old boys who landed at Friends of Greyhounds last week, already has found a home. He plans to head to his condo in Miami-Dade County in a couple of weeks. Einstein will get his vet workup next week at Animal Hospital of University Drive and will start his domestic life when his new mom returns home from an out-of-town trip a few days later. BJ in the FoG backyard ---------- In the meantime, kennel mates BJ and Fella are taking a visit in the kennels Wednesday evening. While we're waiting to hear if that turns into anything, let's catch up on a couple of other friends we've heard from in the past few days. Happy birthday, Luna: She turned 5, so Dawn, Lily and Rose threw her a party in the backyard. ---------- Mark dropped us a video the other day from Ocala, where brothers Jagger and Facebook love running together in their backyard: Officer Rick dropped some more pho...

Doc taking it easy at his Wilton Manors home ---------- Jagger taking full advantage of his new Slumber Ball in his Ocala home

Casey has perked up a bit since we last saw him, but it continues to be a slow process. ---------- Casey's back. The shy young boy spent about four months in his Coconut Creek townhouse with his greyhound-experienced adoptive mom and his feline sibling. But he wasn't happy, and he's back at Friends of Greyhounds looking for a more suitable home. Casey, whose registered name is Killer KC, was afraid of everything when he came to the FoG kennels in April for the first time. He would cower at the back of his kennel if anyone so much as looked at him. He slowly began peeking out of his shell fairly quickly. He would come up to the front of his kennel for a hand nuzzle through the closed gate, and I eventually got him to venture out of his kennel a few steps to take a cookie out of my hand. Within a couple of months, I got to a point where Casey would venture out into the backyard with me as long as one or two other dogs were with us. But he wouldn't want to stay...

Jagger, left, and Facebook in a face-to-face sleep-off ---------- Jagger, the energetic 8-year-old boy who stayed with Dusty and me for a few days recently, has been delivered to his new home in Ocala. Jagger, left, with Mark and Facebook ---------- Jagger was taken in Friday by former Fort Lauderdale resident Mark, a veteran Friends of Greyhounds adopter who moved to Central Florida a few years ago with his hounds Taylor and Facebook. Mark lost Taylor recently and was keeping his eyes open for another older, hefty greyhound who could join him and Face on the long car rides and walks they love. He thought he might have found the hound he was looking for after reading about Jagger here and on the FoG website . He peppered Michelle and me with some email questions about Jagger and got the answers he wanted. Michelle put Jagger in the back of Jerry D.'s SUV (no transport kennel required) and made the long round trip Friday. Mercury ---------- Mark dropped a couple ...

Stormy cleans up pretty well, doesn't she? (Thanks to Carolina for the photo.) ---------- Congratulations to Stormy. The 3-year-old black girl who had been in the Friends of Greyhounds kennels since April has found her way into her first family home. FoG Veep Michelle delivered Stormy this morning to Carolina and Jorge in Miami. The young couple submitted an adoption application on Stormy a couple of days ago, pending a home visit to see if she would get along with the family's Italian greyhound. The two hounds hit it off just fine this morning, and Stormy became an official family member. Jagger taking a snooze ---------- Stormy was the only female in the FoG kennels -- leaving the roster with six boys. Mercury -- the sculpted, athletic fawn -- has been spoken for by a returning FoG adopter and is expected to be delivered later this week. FoG hasn't heard from the Boca Raton couple who visited last week to look at Jagger. They have not submitted an applicati...

Mercury out on a leash walk ---------- 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...

Jagger and Dusty on a leisurely stroll ---------- Hurricane Irma has been gone for about three weeks now, but we still have reminders of her lying in piles all over the place here in South Florida. Everywhere you look, you see missing sections of fencing and heaps of brown leaves and dead tree branches strewn about. For the most part, at least what I see in central and western Broward County, everyday life has returned to normal. People are going to work, restaurants and stores are open, gasoline is flowing plentiful again. But beneath the surface, many of us are still dealing with and paying for cleanup and repairs and working furiously to get our businesses back on track. All of which doesn't leave a lot of time to think about adding a greyhound to our families. Thinking back, I don't believe I know of one person who has visited the Friends of Greyhounds kennels this month to window-shop the available hounds -- and this month will be over in a couple of days. Wh...

Nothing like a shortage of fencing after a hurricane to get a re-homed greyhound out of the kennel for a couple of days. Dusty and Jagger enjoying a morning walk ---------- As most of you know, the good folks at Friends of Greyhounds lost a good chunk of their wooden fence a couple of weeks ago to Hurricane Irma. The fence enclosed a good-sized backyard at the residence and provided a perfect area for the FoG dogs to run loose a few times a day. But once Irma had her way, FoG was left with large gaps in the fence and a statewide shortage of supplies to get a new one built promptly. Michelle and Jerry improvised with some plastic netting and some spare fence rails and scraps of lumber to close up the holes as much as possible. Most of the house and kennel dogs were fine with the temporary solution. But one of the dogs, brindle beauty Jagger, found a breach. He found a way through the temporary fencing, and twice in a day, Michelle and Jerry had to chase him through the nei...

Hello again, everyone. It has been awhile since we've talked, hasn't it? The dog days of summer just wore us down, nothing of note really happened for a couple of weeks, so we just decided to lie low. And then came Irma to shake us awake. And fortunately, there went Irma leaving most everyone I've heard from in our little community almost completely whole. A few of us lost power for a time, some of us lost cell service, Friends of Greyhounds lost part of their backyard fence. But none whom I have talked with lost life, limb or home. So we're in great shape. While we were sweating it out in Florida with Irma raging around us, old friend Buford was playing it cool at his other home in New Jersey. Travis, hope to see you guys soon. Come join us at some of our gatherings this fall when you're in town. ---------- Dusty and I were probably the luckiest of them all. Neither of us, nor the Kia Koach nor the townhouse sustained a scratch from Irma. Worst thing that ...

Hawk with new adoptive parents Mark and Amy ---------- The good news: Hawk got himself into a new home Tuesday. Michelle and I delivered him to Mark and Amy in southwestern Miami-Dade County three days ahead of Hawk's fourth birthday. The bad news: We had to stop in Davie on the way back to retrieve Kelly -- known as PJ when he left the Friends of Greyhounds kennels in April. Kelly couldn't get along with the young grandkids, so he had to say goodbye and come back to Sunrise to look for a more suitable home. Kelly (formerly PJ) ---------- Mark and Amy lost both of their senior greyhounds in the past year. They visited the FoG kennels several days ago and claimed Hawk, who now has a couple of young human siblings and a small fenced yard to explore. The young family will face some challenges bringing a new dog into their home with two toddlers. But Hawk seems to be the laid-back, mellow type, and it is a family with plenty of greyhound experience. Mark and Amy we...