Welcome to the Virtual Memories / Minimally Invasive estates, Rufus, you retired racing greyhound!
Rufus raced under the name Primco Kabam, shares a birthday with my brother and, even though he didn’t do too well on the track, his breed can supposedly get up to around 45mph . . . in three strides.
So, we’ll be keeping him on a leash forever and ever outdoors, or at least till we put up a fence through the whole backyard.
Now for the truth about cats and dogs: your Virtual Memoirist is capable of carrying a 78-lb. greyhound up two flights of stairs.
But I don’t like doing it. So if any of you know how to train a greyhound to go upstairs on his own, I’ll pay you to come by and show us.
Amy made a little photo-essay of this weekend’s event and, since she’s a better photographer than I am (both of these pix are from her set), I figure you should check it out.
Many thanks to Greyhound Friends NJ for making this happen!
It sure beat our original idea for rescuing a racing greyhound: driving down to the dog-track, dressing Amy in a rabbit costume, and having her lure one of them into chasing her into the back of my Element. But then that “45mph in three strides” thing came up . . .
You sure you don’t want to reconsider and name him Santos L. Halper?
what a face! – he’s beautiful – but then all my grandchildren are, aren’t they!
What a beauty. Some friend of mine who had a greyhound trained it to go up stairs by putting meat on the stairs and moving it’s position up one stair every couple days, so it seemed gradual. She swears it worked (I mean, it would make me learn to use stairs, so hey). Great news about the dog. Congrats!
Thanks! He’s MUCH improved going down the stairs, but he still gets a little catatonic at the prospect of going up. When I get him up three stairs or so, he gets more interested in the treats on the top step, which is an improvement. I’m sure that once we put down some carpeting for traction, he’ll be much happier with the stairs.
I have to remind myself: it’s been fewer than 72 hours since he entered our home. This stuff’ll take a little time.