What breed(s) are your ideal match?

• Got the yearly physical out of the way.. passed just fine as usual. Also found-out that my new doc is a racer.. I think we spent more time talking shop than doing the physical itself.. ha.
• Discussed some behaviorial issues with the hound with the vet.. she’s now on “Dog Prozac” and so far is a completely different dog… in a good way
• Got a bit of my old furniture sold and was finally able to finish-up this round of changes to the dining area and living room
• Finally cleaned-out my garage… now I just need more shelving and so forth to organize the stuff that’s left
• Did the annual cleaning of my closet and donated assloads of decent but dated clothes and shoes to ARC
• Cleaned the carpets
• Unexpectedly had a chance to interview with Google for a senior level position
• Spent time with someone relatively new and very wonderful who I hope I can continue to impress enough to keep me around for awhile

Speaking of wonderful, if there happen to be any independently wealthy readers who’d like to financially sponsor me to just go to school I’d appreciate it. In return I can offer expertise in computers and the intaratron (obviously), turbocharged small displacement engines, some knowledge about finding “lines” when on a race track (and I don’t mean the kind of lines that Chuck Norris will kick your ass for doing), cooking depending on how good you are already, obsecure facts, ecclectic music, bits and pieces about farming and ranching, awesome wrestling moves, teach you the finer points about how to tackle someone properly, and maybe I’ll even throw in something like Ohm’s law just for fun.

The ability to track a lost pet has most dog lovers excited. The PetCell has a “call owner” button in case Rover strays. It also includes assisted GPS, or A-GPS, which works indoors, allowing dog owners to map their pup’s coordinates from any web-enabled device or by dialing a voice-enabled call center.

“When dogs disappear, it’s the first 15 minutes that are the most important,” said San Francisco dog trainer Youngblood Harris. “If your dog runs out of the dog park and you don’t see if he went left or right, (PetCell) would make life a lot easier,” Harris said.

The PetCell will also have an option called GeoFence that will alert owners whenever their dog wanders beyond preset parameters, and built-in temperature sensors to indicate if the dog is too hot or cold.

Additionally, the PetCell will support a small wireless camera, an application Robb believes could be useful in search-and-rescue or bomb-squad missions. But for patrons of doggy day care, it may become the canine equivalent of a nanny cam.

One of the times that Audrey got out of her harness was at night and I had NO idea where she ran off to because she took off so fast and it was dark (black Greyhounds are elusive that way)… but eventually she came back. The GPS would be ingenious for a situation like that. I’ve already had her chipped, but even that seems pretty arcane at this point compared to the other GPS type technologies available for different applications such as tracking cell phones.

While I was out looking for Audrey, a friend who was coming over had called to tell me she was on her way over, so I returned her phone call and let her know I’d probably be out looking for the dog but to give me a call when she got to my place. I headed out in the car and drove around the neighborhood looking/listening for her including the places we usually walk and I still couldn’t find her. I finally gave-up on her being within the part of the neighborhood where I took her on walks and started looking around places where we’d never been. At this point I was starting to fear that the only way she would be caught was to be hit by a car, or maybe best case scenario walking-up to a stranger who’d read her tags knowing she’d probably got away somehow.

About twenty minutes of driving around hoping she’d at least find somewhere warm to stay for the night, my friend called:

“Hey, I’ve got your dog!”
“What?! Are you serious?”
“Yes, whenever I got here I called her name and she came running out of nowhere.”

What a relief! I was very surprised she stayed around the neighborhood as the times I’ve taken her to the big Open Space dog parks it’s been quite the debacle to get her chased down to leave.

This story probably seems silly to most dog owners, but it’s a fairly frequent occurrence to hear about Greyhounds which have escaped that get hit by cars, etc. One thing that is ingrained into your head when you adopt one is that they should NEVER be in a non-fenced area without a lead. They are usually pretty hard to catch once they get away.

Not long after that she started whining because she needed to go out, so I put her harness on, and out we went. While she was going to the bathroom I finally spotted what she was so worked-up about; I saw a couple of Jehovah’s Witness types walking around door to door. Apparently they skipped my house because of my killer attack dog. Good doggy.

Despite the lack of a widespread fan base, and in the face of constant protests by animal rights groups, greyhound racing is a healthy industry in the U.S., with millions of dollars wagered each year at tracks in 15 states. Breeders in search of champion-caliber dogs produce thousands of greyhounds each year, a small percentage of which are deemed worthy of high-stakes races. When a dog is no longer profitable, there are few options for its future. Some find a home through adoption, but those who go unclaimed are destroyed. With the supply of dogs being bred far outweighing the demand, an alarming numbers of dogs are put down each year. Correspondent Bernard Goldberg, in collaboration with Sports Illustrated, takes a probing look at the world of greyhound racing.

Being someone who adopted a Greyhound that wasn’t cut for the track, I can kind of go both ways on the whole issue. I got a great dog for a very nominal fee to a non-profit organization which is fully registered with the AKC as well as the National Greyhound Association as a purebred. On the flip side they kill almost 20,000 Greyhounds a year which are unfit to race for whatever reason, and even the ones you adopt have been abused. Luckily Audrey only has a couple of abuse type ticks, and I think they are more related to her being picked on by bigger dogs (she’s a runt) rather than humans abusing her.

On a somewhat related note, my tent crate from JB Pet came in today, and it’s amazing! I’m taking Audrey with me on a 5-6 hour trip to my parents place with me tomorrow, and I needed a kennel to take with me that was not a pain in the ass to deal with. This this is great– I could carry it with one finger if I wanted to, it folds up into something very small, and the assembly takes maybe a minute to basically support it with 4 rods. Greyhounds are kennel trained, and they are a needed part of keeping them happy and out of trouble. After lugging her 60-70 lb pound kennel around the last time I went out of town (and I tore up some shit in my old car in the process), this thing is just amazing!

I haven’t been able to get her to go to the bathroom on the leash yet, but I’m sure she’ll wake me up whining in the middle of the night. Oh well, she hasn’t had any accidents according to her foster family, so hopefully she’ll wake me up so I can take her out instead of cleaning up a mess instead.

I need to trim her nails, give her a bath and start working on her dry skin, otherwise she’s fine. She is so small that she can come out of her collar pretty easily, so I’m going to get her chipped soon when I take her into the vet for an initial visit and perhaps some additional vaccinations. If you didn’t know it already, Greyhounds are very hard to catch once they get loose, and I don’t want that to happen.

You can see a few pictures of her here.

Turns out she really was in the kitchen. Somehow she bent up the wire kennel and climbed out of the top corner of it by the door, broke through the baby gate, and did some major damage to my house. I knew she had really bad seperation anxiety, but after I told the people at the Greyhound Rescue about it, it was the worst they had ever heard of.

How bad? Well, look for yourself.

Unfortunately I had to take her back last night. Its too bad– she was a good puppy when she was around people. But damn, there is a lot of stuff to fix now…

I went to Amanda’s place yesterday to hang-out and watch a couple of movies on her monster home theater, and I had such a great time playing with her dogs! I had both cats and dogs growing-up as a child, but haven’t had a pet like that since 6th grade or so. I forgot how much fun they are!

My requirements for a dog are one classified as medium or large, something that is not too hyper but still likes to play, and doesn’t shed a lot. After doing some research today, I’ve came to the conclusion that I’d like to adopt a greyhound.

They seem to be a really good option for me– they will already be trained and house broken on delivery and past their rambunctious puppy years, as well as be spayed/neutered, have all shots, etc. They are very mellow, loving dogs that like to go outside and play. Works for me!

People do keep telling me that they look funny. Well hey, I look funny and at least a couple of people out there love me.. I think!

I’ll probably buy a couple of the “adopting a greyhound” books on their site and think it over until I get back from Europe before I make a final decision about it, though.