Inaugural Post, Post-Haste

Raja is a five year old brindle male greyhound. I met him at the Arizona Greyhound Rescue kennel (please donate if you can).

As you can see, he's quite a handsome fellow and serves well as a Greyhound ambassador.

Photo courtesy of Suzanne Morrison. http://www.cultofthegreyhound.blogspot.com/ 

He was none too pleased about living in a kennel, and when he saw us, he began barking like crazy. He wanted OUT. (As did all the other hounds). The adoption coordinator collared and leashed him, and we walked out to the dog run. The first thing he did was to stick his big cold wet nose in my face and sniff. Sniff sniff sniff sniff.

That's when I knew, although I refused to admit it at the time. I was in the market to foster a dog, not adopt one. I'd just had my cat put to sleep following a bout of kidney failure (hers, not mine) and was kind of looking forward to a fur-free house for awhile.

In point of fact, said cat wasn't really mine, but belonged to my parents. However, she couldn't stand being in a house filled with golden retrievers—all adopted from Rescue a Golden of Arizona (please donate if you can) and was making her point very clear on all the furniture she could find.

The thing is, I had this friend who'd adopted a greyhound, and she encouraged me to think about fostering. And by "encouraged," I mean, "Shamelessly showing off countless photos of her beloved hound doing silly things like sleeping with his teeth bared and hogging the sofa," and "Always answering 'He's fine' whenever I asked how he was doing." You see how I was cleverly and ruthlessly manipulated into doing this.

So after getting my first face-full of doggie-boogies, I realized that he needed a home, and mine was as good as anyone else's. I took him in the car, along with his borrowed martingale collar, muzzle (more for his protection than mine), official "ADOPT ME" bandanna, and a little bit of dog food to tide me over until I got to the pet store. I figured, in a month someone would adopt him, I'd be free of this bit of doggle insanity that had come over me, and Raja would have a good place to live. A couple of tabling sessions at PetSmart and he would be someone's for sure.

I quickly found out that, much like vampires of the non-sparkling variety, once you invite a greyhound into your home, they immediately begin consuming: food, water, attention, patience, and most of all, the comfy bed. AND THEY DON'T EVER LEAVE.

That's not really true. Lots of foster greyhounds get adopted out to loving homes. Fostering is a greyt way (see what I did there?) to transition a greyhound from the crate life to the greyt life (I did it again!).

It's just that after a month of tabling and walking and petting and feeding him, I looked down at him one morning with his nose smooshed into the comforter, wheezing contentedly away, and realized: he wasn't fostered. He was adopted.

And that, more or less, is the story of how I came to be Raja's hoomin. There will be many more details and stories to follow, particularly concerning how Leash is not Tug of War, the Two Sides of the Dog Door Paradox, and of course, the Necessity of Cargo Pants, which is how this blog really got started, but I felt some context was needed first for those of my readers (all five of you, thanks, your checks are in the mail) who don't know about greyhounds.