It's My Gotcha Day!!!!

(Me in 2006)

I've been in my forever home for four wonderful years!!!! I grew up in Kansas. I wasn't much of a racer. I liked to push my opponent into the corners. My life took a very bad turn when my racing didn't work out. I'm not saying who did it, but someone left me and 24 other greyhounds in a barn. That's right I was left in a barn and it wasn't to visit cows. One day they decided to bulldoze that barn and before they did, they checked it and thank goodness they did because there they found me and my 24 friends. We were saved. I was sent to St. Louis along with 4 of my friends including my half brother. We arrived Easter weekend.

Around that same time, Mama and Daddy were really sad because their 15 year old Cocker Spaniel, Sami, had died. Mama and Daddy wanted a completely different dog than Sami. Sami was aggressive and didn't like people. She barked a lot. Mama said she wanted to rescue a dog. Daddy mentioned greyhounds, but Mama didn't want a dog that had to be on a leash all the time. The weekend after Sami died, Mama and Daddy went to Bass Pro Shop and what did they see? Greyhounds! There was a meet and greet there. Mama took one look into a greyhounds eyes and started crying. She ran out of the store. She wanted her Sami back. While she was so sad about loosing her Sami, she couldn't get those greyhound eyes out of her mind, so she started researching greyhounds. A few weeks later, Mama and Daddy went to a greyhound event and decided they had to have a greyhound. The next weekend, they met me at a meet and greet. Mama walked me around the store. The following week, Mama was called and asked if she wanted to walk a greyhound in a parade. Mama said "YES!" Mama was teamed up with me and we walked and walked and walked. After the parade, Daddy said he was so impressed by me because I was not scared of fire engines, or bands and I loved people. He said I was the one for them. YIPPEE!!!

(Here's Mama and Me in that parade. Mama looks nervous, doesn't she?)

They told the rescue group that they couldn't take me for about a month because Daddy's job was changing. Well, suddenly Daddy was told he had to be in Chicago the following week for an unknown amount of time and Mama didn't want to be alone. The group put things in high gear and I was in my new home before Daddy left.

I still remember being taken to my new home by the rescue group lady. I thought we would never get there. It was such a long trip and then we got a gravel road. I was like "What the heck is that?" When we got in my new home, I had a new bed and lots of toys. I played and played like I had been there all along. The first thing that Daddy said to me when he got home from work was "You look a lot bigger in a house!" LOL

(My face was a lot darker when I moved here. I'm starting to gray now. I much cuter now.)

That first winter was tough. I didn't have a fenced yard, so I had to be on a leash. We had a lot of ice. Mama and I had to take turns bracing each other so that we wouldn't fall. I'm sure we were funny to watch. We had a fence by the next winter and also I had a sister, Scout. Mama thought I wanted a sibling. I could have done without one, but she can be fun to watch at times.

Mama bought me jammies because I get so cold in the winter. I love them. I like to dress up. Mama said I would have made a good girl and Scout would have made a good boy, whatever that means.

(Mama made me a scarf. I'm not sure why.)

So, that's the story of how I came to live here in this two greyhound town. It's been the best four years of my life.

Jack
Who Is Happy To Have Found His Forever Family.

Back To The Grind

Our fun weekend is over. It's back to work today. Daddy is coming home today, but it probably will not be until dinner time.

Yesterday, we spent a lot of time laying on the couch watching TV.


It was a fun day!

Mama left for a little while and went to an open house. She said the yard is gorgeous. The patio is right off the kitchen. How cool is that? When Mama and Daddy built this house, Scout and I did not exist. They had a 14 year old dog that didn't walk much so they didn't worry about a fenced yard. Well, then along came me and they put up a fence so that I could run. Daddy gave up his garden area for me. The problem is that you have to walk all the way through the house and through the garage to reach the door to the backyard. It's a strange set up, but that was really the only way. The rest of our yard is woods. So, with our new house, Mama is focusing on a nice yard for us. She prefers a yard where we can just walk out the door and not to have to deal with steps or at least not too many. So, this house she looked at yesterday is set up that way, but it's a split foyer and there are steps going to the front door and she said they were very narrow. She just knows that I will tumble down them because I tend to jump down steps and not walk down them. Well, at least I can do steps unlike my sister who still refuses to do them. She's such a diva.

Jack
The Greyhound Who Isn't Scared of Steps

Weekend With Mama

We are in Day 3 of our long weekend with just Mama.

Yesterday, we watched a movie and it had greyhounds in it. We were all surprised. It's called AWAY WE GO. It has a scene with greyhounds racing. We fell asleep about a half hour before the movie ended though, so we didn't know how it ended. Luckily, it was shown again in the evening and we were able to see the entire thing.

Mama read a book yesterday. She read the whole thing in about three hours. She cried and cried while reading it. Why do humans do that? The book is called THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by Garth Stein. It is about a dog who is ready to die and the night before his death, he remembers his entire life. He had a good life, but there were a lot of sad things that happened to his human family. Mama said it was a good book.

We ate pizza bones and watched Mama play Wii. We took a short walk. We mainly just enjoyed spending time together.

Oh, do you want to see a funny picture of my goofy sister, Scout? Everyone thinks she is so pretty, but I know the real Scout. I know the Scout that sleeps with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. Do you want to see?

Yeah, she is really pretty, isn't she? LOL

Jack
The Cool Greyhound

It's Saturday!

Daddy is away camping as you know. It's supposed to be 96 today with high humidity, so we think we made the right decision in staying home. Last night, Mama went to Pizza Hut and we ate pizza bones. Yummy! It looks like we will be eating pizza bones all weekend because she forgot she was only buying for one human.

I was so excited when Mama brought home the pizza bones that I threw my stuffie in the air and it landed here.
Mama said we would stay up late and watch TV, but she came in the bedroom at 8 p.m. and read a new cookbook. We were asleep before Jay Leno came on. We did get up at 3 a.m. for a potty break and then we watched TV for a while again. Mama says it's a weekend to do what we want and we will only have to clean the house if the realtor calls for a showing.

Jack
The Pizza Bone Eater

Join the Saturday Blog Hop

Take Your Dog To Work Day

(Silly picture of us from last year. We were on vacation.)

Today is the day that many dogs get to go to work with their parents. We are lucky because we go to work with Mama every day. Mama works at home, so that makes it easy for us. We have a bed in the office. Scout sometimes goes in at lunch time, but normally she stays in the bedroom. She can see Mama from the bedroom, so it's not like she is far away. Sometimes Mama talking on the phone for work makes it hard for me to sleep, so it really depends on my mood whether or not I stay in the office. I check on her several times during the day though. I'm a good boy.

Daddy left for his camping trip this morning. We were sad to see him leave without us. The weather was really nice yesterday and today, but it's supposed to be humid and 95 tomorrow and Sunday. We think we made the right decision in staying home with Mama. We wish the weather would have been nicer so that we could have gone though.

Happy Friday everyone!

Jack
The Greyhound Who Wishes He Was Camping

Too Hot For Camping

Mama and Grandma have decided it's going to be too hot to camp this weekend, so that means we are not going either. Daddy, Grandpa and our skin cousin are going. It's supposed to be 95-97 degrees all weekend. This will be the third weekend in a row for highs in the mid-90's for us and we are tired of it.

Mama said it would be really boring if we camped because Daddy would be off fishing all weekend and it would be too hot for us to do much of anything except stay in the motor home. She also said and maybe I shouldn't repeat this, but I will. She doesn't want to have do all the cooking for the men. She said we will have more fun at home. She has promised us a weekend of movies, pizza bones, lots of cuddles and maybe she will make us a few new collars. We will miss Daddy, but we probably will have more fun staying home this time.

We have another agents' open house tomorrow. That means more cleaning tonight and tomorrow. Mama and Daddy looked at a few homes this weekend. We can't do anything until we sell this one, but Mama has been obsessing over one. They liked it, but the yard is not very nice for us. If it's still available when we sell ours, they may look at it again. Daddy said they could make it work, but Scout wouldn't be able to do zoomies like she does now.

Jack
The Greyhound Who ISN'T Camping This Weekend

Don't Mess With A Greyhound's Routine!

You would think that after me living here for almost 4 years, Mama would know not to mess with my routine. She proved today that she doesn't. She fed us on time, but didn't take us for our morning walk. She said "it looks like it's going to storm, so we should stay in." Yes, it was as dark as night outside. Scout and I decided she was correct and we tuned into the Today Show. However during People's Court at 9:30, we decided we wanted to go for our walk. We ambushed Mama who was working and she told us we had to wait. "WHAT! WAIT?" How could she say that. We kept pestering her until she got upset with us. We knew even though she was aggravated with us that she couldn't resist us. We kept nudging her and dancing around. She finally got to a stopping point on her work and took us outside. We stayed outside for about 3 minutes and decided it was too hot and there were too many bugs flying around. We came back in and went to bed.

If Mama would have just followed our normal routine, we would have been all snug in bed by 8 a.m. instead of 10 a.m. Hopefully she remembers this tomorrow.

Jack
The Greyhound Who Loves His Routine

There's No Place Like Home - Part 2

While we were camping at Johnson's Shut-Ins we met a greyhound by the name of Gracie. She is from Jefferson City, MO. We forgot to ask her last name, so we have no way of re-connecting with her. Mama thought she might be able to find her on Greytalk, but hasn't had any luck yet. If you know Gracie from Jeff City, tell her that Jack is looking for her. :-)

Mama and Daddy went to the shut-ins but Scout and I had to stay in the RV. Why? There is a rule that pets and plastic containers are not allowed there. How did we get put in with plastic containers? That's just rude! I wanted to tell them I was a retired athlete, but then I remembered that I didn't like the water anyway so why put up a fight. A rule is a rule after all.

Here are a few photos of the shut-ins.

Mama said people were diving off the rocks. She and Daddy both wonder how many people get hurt there each day. I'm glad I didn't get to go because it looks scary to me. When that reservoir broke, it gushed right through there. It's a good thing that it happened in December and not when the park had visitors.

Saturday night we had some rain and then a rainbow came out. We took a long walk after that and met lots of people.

We had a nice time even though it was really hot. We had our Frosty treats, AC, breakfast in bed and our humans. What more could a houndie want?

Our next trip is with Grandma and Grandpa. We are going trout fishing.

Jack
The Greyhound Who Is Ready For His Next Trip

There's No Place Like Home

We are home from four days of camping at Johnson's Shut-In's State Park. It was a hot weekend. The temperatures were 95 with a heat index in the 1000's. Actually it was in the low one hundreds. We stayed inside during the heat of the day. It rained on Saturday night and it cooled off, so we walked all over and met lots of people. We still thought we were dying though after our morning walk. It was nice and cool inside, but you can't tell it by looking at us.

Daddy was excited to camp here because it is a brand new campground. The original campground was destroyed on December 14, 2005 when the Taum Sauk Reservoir collapsed and 1.3 million gallons of water swept through the park destroying it. They moved the campground to a new location. It is actually a few miles from the original site on a different road. They say that if the reservoir would fail again, the water would not reach the campground. Mama was still nervous though.

Here is a photo of the old campground. See the rocks. They look small from here, but they are boulders. These boulders were pushed down the hill by the force of the water and landed where the campground was. (Okay, we confess we took these photos on different days.)

See the space where there are no trees. There were trees there. They were swept away by the water, too.
These signs are all over the place.

Daddy says he seriously doubts if the sirens sounds that we would have enough time to make it up 200 steps before the water came. I probably could, but Mama couldn't. Mama is a klutz. She fell on her face this weekend. Yes, she did! We were walking along and the next thing I knew, Mama was eating dirt. It was embarrassing!

I'll share more photos tomorrow!

Jack
The Greyhound Who Is Happy To Be Home

Happy Thursday

It's a nice cool morning here. Tomorrow it is turning hot and humid and Saturday will be 95, sticky with high humidity. What will we be doing? CAMPING! Our plan is to stay in the air conditioned motor home as much as possible on Saturday. We didn't even try to talk Daddy out of it this time. We are going to a state park that just re-opened and Daddy has been talking about camping there for 2 plus years. It is booked up for the rest of the season, so we are going no matter what. We would rather be home, but it will be okay. We have AC, hot dogs and Frosty treats.

Scout
The Greyhound Who Loves To Run

I Need To Start Taking Notes At The Morning Meeting

I really don't remember Mama telling me not to mess up the bed at the morning meeting yesterday. She was not happy with me though when she found me on the bed. Oops!

Mama was quite disappointed with the turn out at the agents' open house. Our agent plus two people from his agency came. That was it. It was supposed to be people from all different agencies. If we would have known that, we wouldn't have gone to the motor home in a thunderstorm while they were here. She received an email this morning from the agent saying there were less than 20 people, but it went well. As Judge Judy says "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it is raining." Mama hasn't responded to the agent yet and is waiting to see all the comments from the agents that he said he is sending later today. It should be interesting.

We did get pizza last night and Scout and I got pizza bones. Yummy!

Jack
The Greyhound Who Needs To Pay More Attention At The Morning Meetings

Morning Meeting

Does your Mama or Daddy have a morning meeting with you? No? Our Mama does. The morning meeting is very helpful because it lets us know what is going to happen during the day and what is expected of us.

(Here we are at the meeting this morning.)

At the meeting this morning, Mama told us that our house is going to be open for real estate agents to look at it today. We've been dreading this day, but soon it will be over. We were told that we need to pick up our toys, keep our noses off the windows and to eat our food so that Mama can wash our dishes and get them put away. Bissell will come out around 11 a.m. and clean the floors, the bed will be made and all our things will be hidden. We will go out to the motor home at 1 p.m. and watch TV until the agents leave. Mama said she may go to town after that and pick up a pizza for dinner because we deserve it after all the work we have put into the open house today. Also, storms are predicted for today, so we will have our "storm buster t-shirts" ready to wear.

I told you that the morning meetings are very informative. We would be hounds running around in a state of confusion without them.

Jack and Scout
The Informed Greyounds

I'm Tired Of All This Cleaning!

It was another weekend of cleaning here. I'm sick of hearing that vacuum run. Mama put our beds up on the big bed while she vacuumed, so I made myself comfortable. It's better than being on the floor and being chased by Bissell. I'll be so glad when we sell this place and we don't have to clean anymore.

Jack
The Greyhound Who Doesn't Mind A Dirty House

I've Been Furminated....

....and I liked it!

What's a furminator? It's this thing.


See, some of my hair is still in it.

Mama read on Greytalk that some of the greyhounds were using it. She never thought of trying one since we have short hair, but I (Scout) shed while Jack doesn't. His hair is coarse and mine is very soft and thick. Mama enjoys being frugal, so she found one on Ebay because the one in the store was not in our budget. It was new in the package and was very reasonably priced, so she ordered it on Thursday and it arrived today.

Do you want to see how much hair I lost? Keep in mind that this is really only one side of me because well, I didn't feel like flipping to the other side and got tired of standing so Mama could do the other side.
Isn't it odd that it's grey hair? I'm a brindle after all. It claims to pull the dead hair, so I guess I'm grey underneath. I don't know. I do know that it was so relaxing having my hair brushed with it.

Jack was a little annoyed because he was laying in his bed and the ceiling fan caused some of my hair to fly into his face. Mama tried it on him and it didn't do much for him, so it's all mine to enjoy.

After my furmination, I had a Frosty Treat. Don't I look nice and shiny? Hmmmm.... well the photo doesn't show it, but I do look really shiny in person.

Scout
The Furminated Greyhound

Happy Friday!

Hi everyone....it's me Scout aka Scoutie Roo. It's Friday!!! I love Fridays. When Mama turns off her computer on Friday evenings, we do a happy dance.

Do we have fun plans for the weekend? Nope! We have to clean the house because next week we have an agent's open house. Mama says we need to do deep cleaning and we need to trim some of the outside plants. The plants have really grown fast this year and need to be trimmed back again.

Do you want to see our house? Daddy and Mama took several plans they liked and put them together and this is how it turned out.


Mama took photos this morning because the day lilies are looking so pretty.

Have a greyt Friday!!!!

Scout
The Greyhound Who Loves Fridays

Fox!

Yesterday, we were recovering from our camping trip when all of a sudden Mama yelled "OMG"! That's really what she said too. Anyway, we ran to the window and there was a red fox on our porch. We had never seen a fox before. Mama couldn't find the camera fast enough to get his picture. She ran outside after she found the camera, but he was long gone.

Later in the day we saw a raccoon run across our driveway. What is up with all these critters in our yard? Do you think they know we are selling our house and are checking it out? Hey, if they have the cash, they are welcome to it. LOL