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Clyde's Story
This story is from my Greyt Angel Stories I used to write for the Gang's Greyt Angels. Some years back, lovely donors would send monthly payments, and I'd provide a story with pictures to them of one of the Gang's motley crew. You can read more of these heartwarming and funny stories on our Blog. This was written in 2005, I think.
Happy New Year everyone!
I recently got back from Almost Home for Hounds. Spent most of January up there, and a bit of February. There are still way too many dogs, and not enough homes. But you know that. The supply far outweighs the demand. Not enough money, not enough time, not enough homes...too many greyhounds. It has been a constant in my life for almost 20 years. Anyhow, I sent you a depressing letter the last time I wrote, so I owe you one with a lighter tone. :)
Never say Never.
I don't know where I heard that, but it is a mantra lodged somewhere in the recesses of my brain. Whenever I say the word 'never' combined with a variety of other words:
I will never speak to that person again.
I will never go to that restaurant again.
I will never get fat.
I will never get a puppy.
Invariably that person becomes my best friend, I go that restaurant too many times and get fat, and I get the puppy.
Clyde. He's curled up under my feet as I type. Scrunched into my 17-year old Italian Greyhounds's round little zebra bed. A 4-month mass of black hair, with sprinklings of fawn and white, a square face with white tufts, and eyes that look at you and the world with all the promise that it holds.
Here's another mantra: Everyone needs a puppy. I've heard people say 'everyone should be married, everyone should have children' and here I am saying - "everyone needs a puppy." I also heard that they were actually going to have a cable channel called The Puppy Channel. It would show footage of puppies - playing, eating, sleeping, sh**ing - doing what puppies do. My first thought: you must be joking. My now thought - what a fabulous idea.
I know exactly what the impetous was to chose this puppy.
It was a rough few months at the end of 2004. I lost most of my Gang last year.
Beauty came to me in my first batch of rescue dogs in 1995. Deathly ill. Temp of 105. Skin and bones. Shivering and looking straight at me with the biggest, doest eyes as she lay curled up on my thrift store couch. She had no name when she arrived, but that first night as we spooned together on the couch drapped with blankets, she told me she wanted the name Beauty. And she never left my side from then on.
Winslow came next, a fawn brindled, gorgeous silent boy who coveted the futon in the corner, and allowed a succeeding succession of dogs into our lives with nary a complaint. They stepped on his head, his futon, ate his food and played with his toys, and he draped himself on the furniture and just let them be.
Lady waifed into my and Chris and Carla's lives. A petite butterscotched striped sprit who started her life in the back of a crate, allowing no human hands to touch her. She was deathly ill with a fungal disease, and the meds were prohibitively expensive. To top it off, she was labeled a spook. A ghost - trying not to be seen by humans, but haunting them at the periphery of their vision. She became so much more.
Regis was a happy, go-lucky boy, who rooed his appreciation of life every day. He went to a home that loved him until a 2-legged boy was born, and then cast him aside at 11. No other home wanted an old boy with white on his brindled face and spindly legs, but I was joyous to find him in my life again.
And in 2004, they all left me. One after another in the waning days of fall as the flowers got shocked by the cold in the air, and the nights got brisk and chilling, and one year passed into the next. And I was without my Gang.
So in late 2004, I was in Colorado helping out at Almost Home for Hounds. Pooper scooping, petting, talking to and letting out over 50 greyhounds all with hope and joy in their hearts that a home was waiting for them. And I was watching. I was hoping that I was that home. I was looking for a sign about the rebuilding of my Gang. But I saw no signs, and my heart did no leaps.
During that time, two puppies arrived. They were bred in Kansas to kill coyotes. Someone from Colorado heard that the farmer was going to kill the three females, so they asked Dr. Weir if she would take them. They would be in KS over Thanksgiving with family, and would drive them back to her that weekend. When the puppies arrived and the car door opened, Bonnie and Clyde tumbled out, and took up residence at AHH that day.
Brother and sister, they immediately called AHH
home without missing a beat. Nothing was sacred. Couches were their launching
pads, other dogs their chew toys. 
Greyhound mixes, she was the leader and he
the follower. She the terror and he the wuss. Within her first few days she
had burrowed her way under the fence and was expanding her universe. And he
followed, diligently already knowing his sister was in charge.
I left in late November sans greyhounds. But I couldn't stop thinking about Clyde. My inner thoughts went something like this:
"What are you crazy!? A puppy?! You said you'd never get a puppy. There are so many other worthy dogs needing homes."
"But his name is Clyde, and that was my nickname from my cheerleader buddies in high school because Claudia didn't fit on the megaphone. And he's black, and I've always had a weakness for the black boys. And he seems so well behaved. ...And he makes my heart smile.
And I'd call Heather and say: "I don't want a lab mix." "He's not a lab mix," was her exasperated response. "German Shepard?" "No". Heather thinks Irish Wolfhound or Scottish Deerhound were combined with the mix of greyhound.
I'd come up with a zillion reasons why I wasn't getting this puppy. And then I returned to AHH in early January, and his puppy antics were a balm to my soul.
And when I left Almost Home for Hounds, he was in the car helping me drive. Never say Never :)