Squares Afghan

I went for a visit at my old store and delivered the afghan to my former coworker there. She's expecting her first child (due 4 October).





The afghan is about 46 x 35 inches (1.16 m x .889 m); each square is about 5.5 inches (almost 14 cm).

Of course, the manager at my new store's grooming salon is pregnant (expecting a girl in May)...and a greyhound-owning buddy is expecting her first child, too. I'm really hoping to get all the afghan-making done before warm weather sets in. You don't want a lapful of yarn when the weather's warm.

Food fight

Yesterday when I got home, I went up to change clothes. I heard Sam rustling around in the kitchen and yelled at him. He, of course, ignored me. He swiped half a package of saltines off the counter, then refused to share with Oreo. Food is the one thing they can get really fiesty about (as opposed to just baring their teeth at each other when one lies down on top of the other). They fought. Lots of growling and snapping as I was flying down the stairs to separate the combatants. As soon as I got them apart, they both went after the cracker crumbs. (And Sam's allergic to wheat.) I got them both muzzled to keep them from fighting as well as to prevent them from "rewarding" themselves with more crackers. I checked both dogs over for blood (hard to see on Oreo), found nothing, then cleaned up the crackers. But when I took off Sam's muzzle, I found where he'd been hurt: on the side of his mouth, back by the corner, where there's a hole that goes completely through from outside to the inside of his mouth. Or does it? The hole is bigger on the inside of his mouth than on the outside, which implies that the boy genius bit himself...all the way through. Anyway, it didn't warrant any stitches. It was a bit puffy this morning, but the swelling had gone down by tonight, and he hasn't seemed bothered by it. (For an antiseptic cleaner, I've used mouthwash on a cotton ball.)

And tonight I found where Sam got Oreo: one small nip on her ear. Dogs' ears have a little flap of skin on one edge, and Sam got that--didn't even puncture it all the way through, let alone rip it. [Correction: The little ear flap is torn--but she doesn't seem to mind unless I mess with it.] (Sam is missing the tip of one ear--an injury he had when he came to me.) This is the second time he's drawn blood from her; once before, she scared him so bad he nipped her to get away--and it wound up needing six stitches. I'm just glad that this incident hasn't required visits to the vet. (Last time, it was a Friday night fight, and I had to take Oreo to the emergency room.)

Anyway, neither dog seems to bear a grudge. And neither dog thought it was a big deal at the time, since they both were more interested in finding more cracker crumbs than in licking their wounds. (Sam gets off better there: Oreo can't reach her wound to lick it.) But they certainly got my heart-rate up. Tonight, I made Oreo go upstairs with me while I went to change clothes. And Sam doesn't know where the rest of the saltines are hidden.

Squares Afghan

A groomer (CC) at the Woodstock store has learned she's pregnant. I've started crocheting a baby afghan for her. The afghan takes 48 squares; I did the first 8 last night while I watched William Holden get killed (The Bridge on the River Kwai)...and get killed again (Sunset Boulevard). Poor guy had a bad night...

Graceful hounds. Not.

Ditzy Sam has scraped his leg—a dime-sized raw patch on the inside of his left knee. He did it sometime yesterday, but I’m not sure when or how. One possibility: when he fell out of bed Monday morning…rolled over once too often. (Oreo has a bare spot on one leg where she fell off the bed—backed up too far, slipped, and scraped her shin on the footboard. This tells you how “hyper” retired racing greyhounds are: they suffer their injuries in bed.) I suppose Sam could have scraped a leg on the bed frame. Or it might have been some other typically-Sam maneuver.

Sam eats. Always.

I got home early, walked the dogs, then went upstairs to change clothes. Oreo came up with me. I heard Sam chewing something downstairs, and I figured he had one of the Nylabones he and Oreo like. But then I decided the sound wasn’t quite right for Nylabones.




He got the measuring cup I use to scoop kibble out of the bag. There were several loose pieces of plastic, but not enough to fill in the gaps in the cup, so he undoubtedly ate some of the plastic. This is why he’s muzzled when I go to work. He wasn’t out of my sight for five minutes. And I got home from work early, so he wasn’t exceptionally hungry. He was just being…Sam.

Oreo's Birthday

Today is Oreo’s birthday. She’s eight years old.

Originally, she was MPS Teresa. Born 20 November 1997, MPS Teresa was one of seven pups in a litter from MPS Nancy by Trojan Episode.

MPS Nancy had one 2nd-place finish in a major sweepstakes. In her best year (1995), she ran in 27 races, finishing 1st six times, 2nd four times, and 3rd twice. By early 1997, her career had tailed off and she managed 3rd place just once in her last seven races and retired from racing. She eventually produced two litters, neither of which had any outstanding racers. This is MPS Nancy, Oreo’s mom, in pampered retirement:



Sire Trojan Episode, on the other hand, was a multirace champion, son of racing legend Dutch Bahama. Trojan Episode sired 1504 dogs, nearly two hundred of which were good enough to run in major stakes races. (The greyhound racing industry frequently resorts to artificial insemination; Trojan Episode wasn’t having that much fun.)

But if Trojan Episode sired nearly 200 dogs that ran in major stakes races, then he sired more than 1300 dogs who didn’t. And one of them was a daughter named MPS Teresa. (And the dog on the water noodles that I’ve used as my icon on a couple of posts? He’s Oreo’s half-brother, one of Trojan Episode’s more successful offspring.)

As a racer, MPS Teresa was … a dog. (Her racing stats are here.) In her six official races at Naples/Fort Myers, she placed 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th (twice). There were excuses for her earliest disasters: bumped twice in her first training race, crowded in her second, muzzle loose in the next. After that, she simply was “no threat,” “no trouble,” and “weakened midtrack” (and that was her best finish). There were a few other races at another track. (I saw the records at a Web site that’s no longer functioning.) MPS Teresa finished third in one—her best finish ever: it was a six-dog race, three dogs collided at the first turn, and my girl was able to pass the pile-up and lope in last of the dogs still standing. MPS Teresa retired at the ripe old age of one year, ten months, and began her second career—as a couch potato named Oreo.

But even as a couch potato, she had a bumpy ride. She apparently was adopted at the age of two, but her adopters had turned her in to another adoption group before her fourth birthday. She was a “bounce” that I took home: nicely housebroken, walked well on a leash…and was the alpha dog from hell. She’s fine as long as the “challenger” is nicely subservient. But give her a challenger who won’t back down, and Oreo’s hackles go up, she barks and snarls and growls…and nothing worse has happened because I’ve hauled her back from trouble. (Size matters with Oreo. Smaller dogs are beneath her notice. Big dogs—Dalmatians, Labs, Weimaraners, Dobermans, Greyhounds, etc.—are the ones she vocally objects to.) I think much of her alpha behavior is a bluff; she’s certainly never harmed Sam, but he—a wuss of the highest order—never directly confronts her.

Here’s the birthday girl on her birthday:



You’ll notice that Sam is sleeping with his head on Oreo. This is the result of his (patent pending) “stealth” approach: he carefully avoids looking at Oreo as he rests his head on the back of the couch, then lets his head slide down to rest on her—while she shows all her teeth in a ferocious snarl.

But even as an alpha terror (on announcements for Meet & Greets, she’s been billed as “Her Imperial Highness Oreo, Empress of the Known Universe”), Oreo has her charms. She smiles—wrinkles her nose, shows all her teeth, and sends her tail whirling like a propeller. (Scares the livin’ daylights out of people who don’t know that’s a smile.) She does a very convincing “quiver lips”: her lips quiver as though she were on her last legs and just inches from collapse from hunger. (Strangers say, “Oh, poor doggie” and risk their fingers giving her treats.) When she’s interested in an unusual sound—or she’s just begging for food—her ears swivel forward on her head and she looks adorable. And Oreo cuddles very nicely next to me on the couch or the bed—she’s not a space-hog like Sam.

Oreo has spent just over half her life with me. And here’s to many more years together…

Gotcha day

I adopted Oreo four years ago today.

Home with the dogs

My day off today. I slept a bit late, played with the dogs. Sam has suddenly discovered an old stuffie that's been here for at least two years. It's a fleecy flat disk about 9 inches across; it used to squeak, but that squeaker was killed probably three minutes after the toy arrived here all those months ago. Anyway, Sam has decided he likes carrying the thing; sometimes he'll throw it in the air and try to catch it when it comes down. And earlier this evening he decided to carry it upstairs and stash it in my bed--maybe he just wants it handy when we go to bed tonight.

I managed to get a few more pictures of the dogs. The e-mail inviting submission of pictures for SEGA's calendar asked for pictures of dogs "doing what they like to do best." At my house, that's sleep, so I guess today's pictures qualify.

Greyhound pictures

I finally got some more pictures of the dogs downloaded from my camera. But I’ve got to work on the guys’ attitudes toward posing. They see the camera and their chins hit the floor. Nothing like taking pictures of furry pancakes…





For variety, there’s Sam sleeping on the sofa.

Sam the genius

Dear Sam--my sweet, goofy, not terribly intelligent greyhound boy.

I just took Sam and Oreo out to pee. A grasshopper jumped onto Sam's butt. Sam turned around and bit it: the grasshopper...and the butt.

He didn't break the skin, but he did surprise himself. He kept looking back at his butt like he thought the bug might come back.

Poor silly boy.