Still Growing!

Miles looks like he is continuing to get taller. He is 30 inches at the shoulders and his back is slightly higher at 31 inches. He is over 75lbs now. Miles and Streak's backs were the same height when Streak was alive. Streak was 30 and a half inches at one measuring at the shoulder a few years ago but having to stand on one front leg seemed to bend his foot a little more and he lost about an inch. He is still getting longer too and is a very long greyhound. Even longer than big Streak. His muscle is definitely starting to come in and he has thighs now. Still has a ways to go before he has the muscle of an adult but you can see him starting to fill out.

Kind of exciting to see him blossom and fun to guess what he will finally look like. His grandsire is Kiowa Sweet Trey. He raced at 80lbs and has pups racing at over 80. When I see a dog that really looks like Miles it usually is a Kiowa Sweet Trey pup. Miles has HB Commander on both sides of his family which was another 80lb racer so even though Miles parents were both smaller racing at 58 and 71lbs it looks like there were some big jeans in the family.

Miles has changed so much since he was a little nearly black brindle puppy. His color changed more than anything. He lightened up a lot and was almost a fawn brindle for awhile as a younger pup without much striping. Later he got more striping and got much darker and redder. Now I think he would be considered a red brindle. In the last month or two he had another color change. His hair on his belly, inner legs, butt and the underside of his tail turned to white - still has black stripes running through it but the gold/orange is white. Looks very much like a tiger with the white underbelly and inner legs. The hair on his sides and back is still orange. His blaze is barely there now just a few white hairs running down his nose.

A Greyhound Puppy?

Everyone thinks I am crazy except a few people that have actually owned a greyhound puppy. Even some of them think I am crazy to get a greyhound puppy. I am making the leap though and have found one to adopt. I decided to start this blog to document the fun.

My greyhound JD (Just Dog) racing name M's Wrong Dog FCh, JC, RE, CGC died from osteosarcoma (bone cancer) mid 2009. I have been looking for another big brindle guy ever since. I foster for Greyhound Crossroads so have had some great dogs come through my house during that time but none that felt right. I have even met a few pups but it took 6 months to find the right one.

I think it was January 11th, 2010 that I got a call from a friend that knew I was looking for a pup about a unplanned litter of greyhound pups that had been born in the Birmingham AL area. Several pups had died of exposure in the very cold weather before the adoption group in the area was called to help. Eight of the eleven pups survived. The biggest boy was a dark brindle with a white blaze, white feet and chest just like JD. Weirder still this pup had been born on Jan 6th which was JD's birthday! Has to be a sign! I told Mel to put my name on the pup when she called.









January 17th 2010 - Went to Birmingham to meet my new pup. He is not even 2 weeks old yet. Eyes still closed but starting to crack. I knew this pup was the one as soon as I met him. He snuggled up and tried to nurse on my face. Was still the biggest and nearly twice the size of some of the other pups. He is the piggy of the litter and definitely food motivated which will be good for obedience and rally that I do with all my dogs. He would nurse every few minutes and smack noisily. If he lost his grip he would go nuts trying to find his way to the food pushing the other pups out of his way. He doesn't whine or yelp much and seems to be a confident guy. The lady that is raising them, Jen, is doing super puppy exercises with the pups so they are quite comfortable being handled.

This is such a rare opportunity since most greyhound pups are raised on farms and not available for adoption until after their racing careers are over at 2 - 5 years old. It will be interesting to see the difference between my previous greyhounds and this one with all the early training he will get.