This is Mitch the greyhound and we will be adopting him. He still needs to go to the vet to be neutered and spend a week with a foster family to teach him how to climb steps, not get freaked out by mirrors, etc. He has only lived at dog tracks his whole life and this will all be new to him.







Look how muscular he is!


Mitch was an active racer but he got into a bad dog fight and had a major artery ripped open. It would have cost the owners more money to rehabilitate him than they would recoup from racing him after he healed, so they gave him to the rescue.

We don't have his racing number yet, but when they do we can look up how he did in every race he ran in his career. How cool is that? His birth month and year is tattooed on the bottom side of his ear.

Greyhounds are sight hounds (as opposed to scent hounds) and moving-things really get their attention. A squirrel that you can't even see on the neighbor's fence across the street is like a big red neon sign to him saying "Chase me!" Because of this the rescue people could not stress enough how important it is to be very aware of him when going through an outside door. They said they are trained to run like crazy as soon as the trap door at the starting gate opens up, and they think some of that stays with them whenever they see a door opening. They had lots of sad stories about people whose hounds snuck through their legs in the doorway and they find them two miles away flattened in the road. (They can cover two miles in about 2 minutes 40 seconds!)

We spent time with four dogs today. The first one came right over to us and immediately started snuggling which was nice, but he seemed too timid. We were afraid he would be a nervous dog with separation anxiety issues which can be a real handful. Mitch was the second one we saw and he had a perfect combination of being into being affectionate with us and playing with toys and exploring the room. The third dog really couldn't have cared if we were there or not. He was interested in what he could see out of the window and front door and didn't really seem into his toys. The final dog had a personality about halfway between Mitch and the third dog. He was a little more into us but not as much as Mitch. The third dog was also all black and I really wanted more of a classic brindle greyhound coat. So Mitch it was.

We should have him in about three weeks.

Now we are getting ready to settle in and enjoy the Ohio State vs. Michigan game.