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Loved Hound

Your hound can be featured as a Loved Hound, too. Just bid in Greyhound Gang's on-line auction (during the first two weeks of every month) for your chance to be spotlighted. Or bid to feature a friend's hound, as a present. Once you've won, you'll email me pictures and text, and the following month, this is where you and your hound will be. Loved Hound. Our wish - love for them all.

Max - written by Lisa Fanjoy

In 2001, I was walking our husky mix in the neighbourhood as I did every day. She had blown her cruciate the year before and since the surgery was a little fear aggressive towards other dogs, so I was careful about running into other dogs. Well on this day, we came around a blind corner and ran into one of the biggest dog I had ever seen; he towered over my girl and I grabbed onto her collar for dear life, expecting her to start growling and lunging. Instead her ears pricked forward and she slowly began wagging her tail. This enormous dog did the same and they proceeded to exchange friendly sniffs - shock! What special powers did this dog have, that he immediately put my girl at ease and eliminated any fear?? Well, as you can all guess it was a greyhound and he had all the super powers we associate with them - gentle and non-threatening personality and my girl responded so positively. I had never met one before and I was quite intrigued. I remember going home and mentioning to my husband about the incident and saying that this might be an interesting dog to consider “someday".

Unfortunately, "someday” did come just a few months later, as my precious girl succumbed to cancer at the age of 12. But as our hearts healed, we did begin looking seriously into these greyhound dogs and a couple of months later, visited a greyhound rescue kennel, spending a few hours visiting with all the hounds there. Through our research we had decided we wanted a boy but didn't really have any other specifications in mind. We met and petted and walked many wonderful hounds that day but nothing wasclicking.

 

Then, as we were standing at the end of the boy's row of kennels, petting a little brindle boy, I could feel eyes upon me, like I was being watched. I looked up and about half way down the row, in a top kennel, there he was. I wasn't being watched, I was being summoned, pleaded with, across the rows of other dogs. When I looked at him, he continued to look back, very intent, focused. So I asked the kennel owner “what about that boy?”. "Him-oh, that is Smartie. He's a nice boy. Let me get him”. So down hopped a great big red and white (well, kind of yellow-kennel coat!) boy who calmly and confidently sauntered right up to us. We took him for a walk, and he was the first one to show any interest in us as his surroundings. He had clearly already decided that we were his people- what could we do but agree?! On March 10th, 2002, we brought home Maxwell Smart, (Tomax Smart Play)-Max, an almost-4 year old red and white parti-boy who summoned us with his own special powers from across the room!

While we had wanted to adopt a dog that ‘needed’ to be rescued, to change their lives, it was we who were changed; it was me who was rescued. This boy changed my life. We ran into another greyhound owner a couple of weeks after adopting Max at a close by ball diamond that we thought would be a good place to let Max stretch his legs. That was just the first of many wonderful, wonderful greyhound friends to be made over the years. Together, she and I started WAGG - the Waterloo Area Greyhound Group - just a little social group for greys and their owners, still going strong today. The group got together every weekend at that same ball diamond and have done many greyhound adoption awareness events at local pet stores, malls, and events. We became part of the St. John’s Ambulance Therapy dog program and through the WAGG group, eventually another 10 greyhounds became part of that program too! He gave me a purpose to my weekends, as we volunteered with WAGG or SJA, and meaning to my life.

Playing at the ball diamond with one of his buddies, Max2 - My Max is in the red.

Max was a perfectly easy dog, thank goodness, because we were typical clueless first-time, owners. In spite of the research we did, when I look back now, I shudder at the mistakes we made - and remain forever in awe of my boy's ability to have forgiven us and to have kept us as his humans! He figured out stairs in less than a week, never had an accident in the house, only had the occasional incidence of sleep aggression and walked on leash like a rock star. He learned how to play with stuffies, and he played fetch better than any lab! Oh, he would play fetch forever if we let him!! This face would beg us to throw it again and again and again. Always to bring it right back and drop it at our feet.

But now, the most perfect boy who ever was, is no more. Even now, four months later after he left us, I still cannot believe a dog so full of life, so full of zest, so full of himself, could be gone. And most heart breakingly he left without me. I was out of province at school and he collapsed and was gone before DH could catch him and lower him to the floor. Leaving us alone, in our home that is so full of Max.

Since a friend so kindly gifted me with this opportunity, I'd like to share some memories of my boy. For a momma's boy he was through and through - I sang "me and my shadow" to him all the time, he was always at my hip. I am still learning how to walk around our home without accommodating for a greyhound shaped appendage. :)

He had several jobs that he took very seriously. Playing with stuffies was a full-contact sport and our basement always looked like a hospital ward with toys, in varying degrees of amputation, evisceration and decapitation!

 

In spite of being an active retired athlete, he loved to relax and enjoy the outdoors, making sunbathing a part of his regular routine in the sunny summer days.

 

 

 

As is typical of greys, he was breathtakingly regal and dignified.

 

But never took himself seriously and could be oh-so-silly and had no qualms about jamming his greyhound butt into a dashound sized bed. Doesn't he look pleased with himself! He made me laugh, every day.

 

 

 

 

 

But of all his jobs, the most important one, the one he devoted his waking moments to, was that of being my boy. He was my best friend, my partner, my reason for looking forward to coming home every day and seeing his face, watching for me out the window (the neighbors told me they always knew when it was near 4:30, because Max would appear in the window, watching for me). This look, these eyes, greeted me every day, made my every day, no matter how difficult, a good day.

 

 

 

 

So until we meet again, my boy, my love, my heart and my soul, I'll be with you always and remember - momma loves you more than peanut butter...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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