Blending

I was snapping photos of my dogs today - a regular occurrence around here (and one that bores them silly). This is our beautiful old Frosty girl. I noticed in this photo that her brown markings aren't so brown anymore. Just for fun I spent some time playing with the contrast button, putting back her vibrant color and then watching her gray again like time lapse photography.

It made me think about aging as a loss of contrast. Smoothing the sharp edges. Blending. I like this notion. Frosty will be 13 in March. I will be ... more than that. My hair is not so brown anymore either. She and I are becoming more alike as, together, we lose our contrast. We are turning gray together - and I'd like to think I'm also more greylike than when I was all "contrasty".

Blessings upon you in this new year. May we all become more like our greyhounds in 2009.

Silver Frost

Spring 2005.

Our resident hounds were Buddy, Cissie and Aero. Friend Carol and I took a road trip to Nunn, Colorado to visit Heather Weir at her kennel - Almost Home for Hounds. Our mission was to give Heather a hand around the kennel and then bring a few hounds back to Montana for placement by our adoption group. A “few” turned out to be nine. One of these hounds was a senior gal named Frosty.

The first time Carol and I waded (literally) into a large group of hounds at Heather’s, I looked down to find this lovely older grey girl between my legs - grinning up at me. The next time, and the next, there she was again. Carol remarked early on that she was obviously "my dog".

"Not hardly," was my reply. ”We have three dogs at home - more than enough. I’m just not in the market for more.” Still – the optimistic Frosty persisted, and so did Carol.

The day we left Colorado I finally agreed to include Frosty in our load. I was certain we could find a spot for such an elegant old girl with some lucky family as we passed through Billings. Nope. The “some lucky family” turned out to be ours.

Frosty, registered “Silver Frost”, was born in Ireland on March 10, 1996, to Irish parents, Adage and Chet. She raced four seasons between 1998 & 2001, and then between 2001 and 2004 had three litters of pups, nineteen of whom were registered to race.


While there’s no doubt Tory is our Princess, Frosty is our Dutchess. She has nobility about her and nothing goes unnoticed in her world. She sees snowflakes, flowers and planes flying overhead. Her unabashed wonder at the world makes her eyes light up as if to say “Wow! Did you see that?”

She has no need to show her alpha status but if another hound gets out of line, it’s clear. One morning, as she was sleeping, Tory made the poor choice to test Frosty’s mettle. Tory stood over her and, with a low growl, demanded that Frosty surrender her bed. I’d not have believed what happened next if I hadn’t been watching. One moment Frosty was snoozing and the next, she had Tory pinned by the neck to the floor. Her speed was astonishing. Frosty didn’t hurt her, but the message was clear and the look on Tory’s face was priceless.

Frosty will be 13 years old in March. Her vision is not as clear as it once was and she’s getting a little wobbly but there’s not a hound anywhere who enjoys life and family (especially her dad)more than our old Irish girl.

Lessons from Sadie

Meet Sadie. She was the orneriest feline this side of the Mississippi. Six pounds soaking wet and independent as a hog on ice. She came to live with us as a birthday gift to me from my husband and she was around to celebrate 16 more birthdays.

She was a give-away, only a year old, spayed and declawed. But what she lacked in size and weapons, she made up for in attitude. She single-handedly cowed all of our greyhounds and many foster dogs besides.

When greyhounds first arrive into our adoption group we need to “cat test” them. This is a very controlled process that doesn’t put the cat in any danger but it tells us whether or not a dog can be safely placed in a home with a kitty. With a lead held tight, one person allows the muzzled dog to slowly approach a kitty, which is being held by a second person (note: you’d rather be the dog holder than the kitty holder). Usually, as the dog approached, Sadie would hiss, and throw a succession of punches at the dog’s nose that would seriously rattle the basket muzzle and, consequently, the dog’s brain. Usually, that’s all it took to cure them of kitty curiosity but there were a few hounds who proved by their persistence that they were unsafe for kitty households.

Sadie got so good at her role as “tester” that she could give us the results even without the test. We could usually tell, just by walking into the house with a new dog what the verdict would be. If she jumped up on a chair (putting herself eye level with the dog) and watched, chances were there was nothing to fear. If she ran under the chair where she was somewhat protected but still visible, we likely had a “cat correctable" hound on our hands, i.e. one who could be taught that cats are not, in fact, fast food. If she disappeared into the narrow space between the wall and the back of the couch, there was no need to do further testing. This would be a dog who needed to live in a kitty-free zone.

The only hound who ever buffaloed all of us was our own Frosty. During the cat test, Frosty backed off a respectable distance and refused to approach Sadie again. But a couple of days later, Sadie went racing across the deck and Frosty had her before I could open my mouth. Fortunately, Frosty was interested only in the chase, not in a meal. She pinned Sadie to the deck for only a moment and immediately released her when I hollered. Sadie stood up, hissed, slapped Frosty across the nose and disappeared around the corner. I know how lucky we were. I had set the dog up to fail by forgetting the cardinal rule: a cat lounging around the house is not the same as a cat racing across the yard.

We watched Frosty and Sadie together very closely thereafter, but that was the only incident. I think Frosty just wanted to prove she could do it. It was a lesson for all of us. Frosty learned that was a forbidden behavior, we humans learned how lightning fast Frosty is and Sadie learned to move slowly in the presence of greyhounds.

Over time, tolerance turned to curiosity and perhaps even friendship.

The Dutchess Wins Again

And speaking of getting them to eat vegetables (or anything) … there’s Frosty.

The Carrot Chase is SO far beneath the Dutchess. Such silliness only elicits a squinty–eyed, “boy, you’re really weird” look at both me and the other gh's. Frosty’s a dog of a thousand expressions and dinnertime really brings out the best (or worst) of them.

You see, Frosty is really not that interested in dinner. She is almost painfully thin and, believe me, we’ve tried all the tricks. Most of them work once or twice but any particular trick will never work three times in a row. Fortunately, Brent and I are pretty good at thinking up new tricks. I suspect she finds the whole thing vastly entertaining.

We always give our greys a good brand of kibble and top it with some special delight. Our arsenal has included satin balls, sardines, cheese, vanilla yogurt, Campbell’s soup, bottled gravy, “stinky cat food” (usually liver), beef or chicken broth, tuna, corned beef hash, and grated meat sticks (the Natural Balance doggy variety). The one that works best consistently is boiled chicken. We boil chicken legs and thighs, take all the bones out and serve them chicken soup over their kibble.

Still, Frosty will eat two or three meals well and then the next one – same mixture – same presentation – we get “the look”. For those of you who’ve had young children, it’s the “I don’t care if I don’t get dessert – I’m not eatin’ this” look…

A couple years ago I had an inkling she was getting bloated as she ate, so I started burping her. Yep – that’s what I said – burping her. She’ll stop eating, give us another of her looks and we’ll gently pat her on the sides until she burps. Doesn’t mean she’ll necessarily finish her dinner but it works about half the time and it clearly makes her feel better.

Fortunately, she is a sucker for cookies. The homemade peanut butter dog cookies are the favorite, but she’ll also gobble down “cardboard cookies” – those nasty little rock hard milk bones that have probably been in some warehouse for months. She’d eat the whole box. So she gets lots of cookies to keep her from disappearing altogether. Other special treats include hard boiled eggs and ice cream on Sundays.

Any questions about who’s in charge at our house?