bunn | Entries tagged with greyhound

On Sunday, I took Theo out on a social walk organised by a local greyhound rescue. I wouldn't normally have taken him along, since he's a Greek Harehound and very definitely not a sighthound, but Julie, who runs the course he'd been attending and also organised the walk, suggested that we give it a go.

I wasn't entirely sure how he would react to encountering a huge bunch of greyhounds and lurchers. I thought he might be a bit wary, and was prepared to hang back a bit and take it slowly.

He LOVED it. Even though it was a grey old misty day (so no photos, too mirky for that). He was all over the place wagging like mad, sniffing all the dogs (well, apart from the single Afghan, which surprised him a bit), having a little bounce with some of them. He was SUCH a happy hound.

Conclusion: Theo is a scenthound, but having been raised by a sighthound, he considers sighthounds to be His People.

I didn't take Rosie, because she can really only handle very gentle bimbles now, and also she hates other sighthounds and believes she should be the only one. And she also hates rain, and has decided she will only go out if it's sunny. So many opinions!

We seem to have cleared the last of the Shop orders before Christmas OK, and I've made some progress on a new way of tracking stock that I hope will free up some time next year! And I made a Christmas card, as usual, featuring the Pigfaced Packing Orcs.

And today I went swimming, despite the gloom and wind, in a little sheltered bay where the water wasn't *that* cold, really, a mere nine degrees of so.

If I don't manage another update this month, I wish you all well and I am still reading your posts even if I don't always manage to come up with a comment. Also, apologies to anyone who saw this when I was fighting the editor and it was doing weird stuff. I'm still not entirely used to Dreamwidth.

I was very much haunted by the ghosts of old dogs this morning, but not in a bad way. Rosie and Brythen love their lie-ins, so mornings are mostly rather quiet now - but while I was getting up, I kept thinking that Az and Mollydog were doing their usual joyful morning-dancing, just out of sight and not quite in earshot.

( one last photo... )

The rescue that both Mollydog and Brythen came from, Greyhound Rescue West of England, wanted to do a video for the end of the year, and I volunteered to help pull it together and sort out the captions and things. It's just happy ever afters really. You may recognise the cover gentleman. :-)

I so much hoped that my beautiful Mollydog would recover from her latest illness. She'd been through so many medical problems of one kind or another and always come back strong and happy. I suppose I had begun to hope, despite her age, that she was indestructible.

But last night she began struggling to breathe and we could not get her comfortable. We rushed her to the vet (who came in specially at half past midnight, poor man). He thought at first that an emergency operation might be worth a try - which was a terrible dilemma, as I had made up my mind that I didn't want to put her through yet another major surgical procedure. But in the end she went downhill too fast. I and

philmophlegm were both there to hold her and rub her ears as she was euthanased.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: sad

( Minor ailments of a Bungle cat )

( In which my hounds spurn a gift, but are eventually won over )
( Further houndly spurnage. )

Current Mood: hmph

Am tormenting myself looking at some rescue Borzois that have just come into Evesham Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue, and reading up on borzois, which are a breed I greatly admire and would love to own. Doesn't seem to be that much on the web about them, but I found this article of which one line struck me particularly :

Confining all of the exercise of a sighthound to leash work with a jogging human is like exercising an eagle on a string.

Well put, I thought.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Went in to see Mollydog's surgeon, Rude Craig.

( Leg Things )

Rude Craig didn't charge me for the consultation, even though I was in there a good 15 mins, asking questions and agonising. Also, he was really polite! Am a bit worried that this means he thinks the implant is going to have to come out so I should start saving up! Though thinking on, I think it would probably be covered by her insurance, which is something!

Current Mood: concerned

Mollydog's back bad leg (the one that had the operation) was badly swollen this morning, so we've just been to the vet. The hope is that she has just twisted and bruised it somehow, as the bone still seems solid where it was fused. The swelling is considerable, and obviously painful, so she has antibiotics and is on complete rest till Monday, when she will see her surgeon (Rude Craig). She's already on painkillers for her other bad leg, so not much more to add there, though I am wondering whether to break out the spare bottle of Metacam instead of Previcox tomorrow, as Rude Craig reckons it's better for fleshy type pains.

When the duty vet gave her an injection she warned me Mollydog might scream. 'Oh, she is usually quite brave about that sort of thing', I airily said. Which normally, is true.

But not this time. She did her best Violet Elizabeth Bott act and screamed and screamed and screamed for about a minute... Thankfully, she was not sick, but when we came out into the waiting room afterwards, all the waiting dog owners were strangely pale and silent.

Current Mood: worried

Oldies Club has been asked to take another old greyhound, who turns out to be another of Mollydog's half-siblings, Jack's Jewel. I wonder if we'll get any more of her sibs...?

As you've probably noticed, I am miffed about Dara O'Briain's part ownership of a greyhound which he showed off on telly, but which was none the less killed as soon as it broke a hock, before the TV program was even screened.

Pursuing this miffedness, I polled the Oldies committee, and with their consent and full backing, have been pushing the issue via the social media I have at my command wearing my OC hat as well as my own. Am impressed by the speed and size of response on Twitter.

Current Mood: quixotic

This article is about an episode of Three Men in a Boat, with Rory McGrath, Griff Rhys-Jones and Dara O’Brian, filmed in October.

They went to see a dog part owned by Dara race in Ireland - which is bad enough, given that the Irish racing industry is pretty grim.

The dog was Snip Nua, and the Irish greyhound racing board have now confirmed that Snip was put to sleep after breaking a hock last month. I cannot believe that Dara O'Brian cannot afford to get a hock problem fixed. I can afford to get a sodding hock problem fixed. This was a puppy, not two years old, if they had even amputated the damn leg, the dog would have coped well.

It wouldn't be a racing dog, but so what? I believe it is wrong to breed dogs and then kill them for a night's entertainment.

I don't know if the allegation that Redwood Rio was injured on the actual night that the BBC were filming the race is true or not, but I think the less well of all three comedians, and after Molls recent hock issues, I feel a bit sick.

Current Mood: sad, angry, a bit sick.

If you read my Monster Iceland threads you already know this, but I thought I'd like to make a separate entry of it.

Mollydog decided to take off running in a field while we were away, on thursday 3rd - nothing new about that, Molls is generally great offlead and always comes when called so I'd said that they could let her off, as she is used to that and I felt she would be frustrated if kept on-lead. Unfortunately, this time she tripped and hurt herself. They thought it was just a bruise at first as she seemed to recover, but the next day it was very swollen so they got her off to the vet.

I can't fault the dog boarding place at all over this: she could have done it walking with me, and they got her to the vet as soon as it was apparent there was real damage. They were also great about taking her back in as soon as they felt she wasn't doing so well, and keeping me thoroughly informed even though it meant calls and texts to a mobile phone outside the UK.

The diagnosis is a damaged ligament, but there is a worry that there is an infection, because she had a temperature and the hock was so swollen. She has antibiotics, Metacam (better for a ligament injury than her usual previcox, apparently) and her leg is bound up - I'm taking her in tomorrow to get it checked and re-bound. She's on complete rest: no walks at all and minimum exercise in the house. I must say I was expecting her to take that less willingly than she has done, so I think she is feeling a bit under the weather, she really only tries to move about if someone she knows arrives at the house. She will put weight on the leg, but not much, and she has tripped and fallen a couple of times. I'm rather concerned that she is still so tender with it.

29 kg of greyhound is no joke to be lifting up and down steps and stairs: why don't we have a flat garden and a bungalow?!

Current Mood: worried

We had peas with our evening meal yesterday. I don't normally like peas, but had to eat these as I had grown them. They were very very fresh and delicious.

I'm not going to bother with the Sweet Green in future - the Delikett grew faster, produced more peas, and are edible both as peas and as mangetout, whereas the Sweet Green only seem to be good as mangetout, they get a weird bitter flavour once they start to pea up.

Discovered yesterday that Lucy Greyhound, who came to the Oldies Club as a stray,is Mollydog's younger half-sister: they have the same father [pedigree]. Admittedly there are 4672 other registered greyhounds that applies to, but still. Bit of a coincidence.

Lucy is almost 2 years younger than Mollydog, but I reckon she looks 1-2 years older. She raced in Newcastle and that's where she was found straying, but where she's been for the intervening 4 years and how she ended up on the street is anyone's guess. She was very underweight and her teeth were such a mess they all had to be removed, so pretty sure she hasn't wandered from a loving home.

Current Mood: dozy

I have just been informed that Mollydog's sire, Mustang Jack, is still alive and is *still acting as a stud*. He is 15 years old and has fathered 4673 registered pups... so far. (That's registered pups: only 'promising' pups would be registered, any born with 'problems' would probably be euthanased.) The last registered litter he sired was born Aug 2006.

Good grief.