Dusty and me

Luna with Dawn and Rosie at Ruby Falls in Tennessee ---------- Luna just got home from a winter vacation to points north. Mom Dawn sent along some photos to share with everyone. It's never too cold to have fun with sisters Rosie and Lily. ---------- Dawn, Lily and Rosie took their hound on a four-state expedition over the holidays. Dawn said Luna (known as Lulu when she was in the Friends of Greyhounds kennels) was a great travel companion. Luna got to visit dog parks in four different states -- Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky -- and went everywhere with Dawn and the girls. She had no problem with the frigid weather, Dawn said. Luna's faux sheepskin coat and hound tee helped her cope with temperatures in the single digits. Dawn said Luna got a bit spoiled on the trip. "Re-entry has been a little tough for her," Dawn wrote. "Each time I reach for the car keys, she is halfway in the car -- and I have to break it to her gently that she can...

Mercury with his new mom, Lisandra ---------- Mercury is in a home, and it turns out he didn't have to go far to find his new family. The muscular fawn was delivered Friday night to Luis and Lisandra in western Sunrise, not far from the Friends of Greyhounds kennels. Mercury and Luis ---------- This is Mercury's first taste of domesticity. The 4-year-old was fresh off his racing career when he landed at FoG in August. Luis and Lisandra are first-time greyhound parents, and they chose a particularly spirited one to initiate. But it's a great situation for Mercury. He has a spacious backyard to explore. His new parents work opposite shifts, so he will have someone at home with him most all the time. And the L's seemed excited about the prospect of taking long walks with Mercury to get him accustomed to the neighborhood. Luis and Lisandra had been watching the FoG website and this blog when they saw this video of Mercury in full-on prance mode. They visit...

Jake and Shar Shar welcome Apollo to their Margate home for a trial run. ---------- Apollo has a home for the holidays. The 8-year-old fawn who landed at Friends of Greyhounds three weeks ago is with a Margate family giving him a chance to settle in. I rode along with Michelle on Friday evening to deliver Apollo for a home trial with Debbie and Matt and their son, Jake. Apollo will be there for at least a few days to find out if he can get along with Shar Shar, a female hound who will be 7 on New Year's Day. Debbie and Matt have a long history as canine parents. They had a couple of boxers before adopting Shar Shar, their first greyhound, from FoG a few years ago. Apollo is the second FoG hound currently on a home trial. Kelly has been in Palmetto Bay for a couple of weeks. Michelle is confident that Kelly is in the home to stay, though he has not been officially adopted. FoG welcomed a young Sunrise couple to the kennels earlier in the evening Friday who are co...

Black dogs, kennel collars and winter wear have been moving out of Friends of Greyhounds at a good clip the past couple of weeks. Apollo hanging out at FoG on Thursday ---------- But the Sunrise adoption shelter still has a quartet of fawns as well as a brindle beauty that would love to have permanent homes for the holidays. Apollo , at 8 years old, is the eldest of the current residents. He landed at FoG two weeks ago after being in his home for 6 years.  Apollo wasn't much of a racer. He ran twice in Melbourne in 2011 as D's Red Fury before moving to Birmingham, AL, where he ran in five maiden races, always finishing near the back of the pack. He was adopted six years ago, shortly after his racing career ended. But he recently went through a family breakup and moved into an apartment in Coconut Creek with his dad. His caretaker works long hours, and Apollo soon became really unhappy with his situation, spending long hours by himself day after day. Dad...

John G. says hi to Bo, who we used to know as Boogie. In the background are Bruce (formerly Posey) and Knuckles. ---------- It was a glorious day for a gathering of greys. Midday temperatures got into the 80s and the sun was bright for much of the day. But One Last BBQ provided plenty of shade, and the tropical breezes made for a beautiful afternoon. Joy gets a family photo with Turtle, David and Honey. ---------- Friends of Greyhounds had a great turnout for its gathering today at the barbecue stand at Flamingo Road Nursery. The big attraction: Boxes and boxes of kennel collars Michelle and Jerry D. have collected over the years. FoG put out the word earlier in the week that adopters wishing to claim those mementos of their hounds' histories could pick them up at the BBQ gathering. And a lot of old friends showed up to do just that. The collars giveaway is looking like a hit. Michelle distributed dozens of them today and has heard from several other adopters who wer...

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...

Fella ---------- The revolving door continues to turn at the Friends of Greyhounds kennels in Sunrise. Mercury ---------- Michelle drove to Hialeah on Tuesday evening to pick up a couple of beautiful boys from Chris at the Florida Kennels compound. Fella and Mercury bring the FoG guest roster up to seven. They join Kal, Logan, Hawk and black girls Frozen and Stormy. Hawk has been claimed -- he will be delivered to his new home in Miami-Dade County sometime next week. Some if not all of the adoptable hounds will appear at a couple of adoption events this weekend. Michelle will take a couple of the greyhounds to the Pet Supermarket store in Sunrise on Saturday. Another adoption group also is scheduled to be at the store, at 2696 N. University Dr., as part of a company promotion. The event starts at 11 a.m. and will run until mid-afternoon. The seventh annual Animal Adoption Fair is slated for 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday at War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale. Frien...