Fancy Fred
Okay. I would like to state for the record that we are not suckers.
Since we fostered Leo last summer (and eventually adopted him), our Greyhound group's Foster Coordinator has been trying to get us to foster another greyhound (and not adopt this one). We've been worried that adding a fouth dog to the house temporarily would become a permanent fourth dog, and therefore reluctant. But this summer eleven of the usual foster families have decided to "take the summer off". The problem is that that means eleven fewer places for greyounds from the track to live until they can be placed with families who want to adopt them. And the fewer fosters there are, the fewer dogs we can rescue from racetracks.
The good news is that there is a waiting list of families willing to adopt greyhounds. So if we can house the dogs, they will find homes shortly.
So Bob and I figured that it was time to give back to this wonderful organization who gave us Melody, Sebastian, and Leopold.
Meet Fred. Fred's real name is "Eufala Me". He's a young'un. He turns two in a week which means he was fairly unsuccessful at the track. He's black and tiny but in fairly good health, considering the life he's had. He has a couple of bald spots and he's skinny, but he's not nearly as bad as Leo was when he came to us. The only major injury I can see is that he's missing the outside toe on his left front paw. But it took me ten hours of knowing him to even notice and he doesn't move strangely because of it.
Fred is the first dog we've had straight from the track. Leo was a "bounce" whose family couldn't afford to keep him (and the seven Boarder Collies and the other greyhound he lived with). Sebastian was also a bounce and Melody lived with a foster family for a month before we adopted her. So far we haven't had any problems. Fred is sweet and curious and the other dogs seem mostly to ignore him. He sleeps in his crate and doesn't get on the furniture. He's eating lightly, but hasn't had any stomach trouble (a typical side effect of going from cheap track food to real dog food).
But despite not having a puppyhood, Fred already knows how to play. It took Sebastian a month before he even tried to play and Leo has just started playing after nearly a year with us. Fred has it all stitched up. He grabs a squeaky toy and trots around the house squeaking it. He's not up for a chase yet. He looked at me with that "catch me catch me" face earlier today, but when I chased him a bit, he dropped the toy and wanted a scritch instead. He's very sweet and wants to be around people.
He's a little too curious about the kitchen garbage for his own good, and he's training Bob not to leave his erasers and other writing things lying about. (This is not a bad thing! He's accomplished in less than a day what I haven't in seven and a half years!)
In celebration of our first foster greyound, we will donate 10% of all sales 16 June through 22 June to First State Greyhound Rescue. Please help us support this good cause.
Update: June 10th 2011 Robin cannot resist sneaking in here that after a lovely life with a nice old man Fred found his way BACK to RH and is now a permenant member of the Family. They really stink at this Fostering thing :-p