Adopt-a-Senior Month Event!A

Join us at this lovely pet store in Milwaukie to meet our contingent of senior dogs in honor of Adopt-A-Senior month! We have some wonderful retired racers waiting for a family to take them home and spoil them completely rotten!

Where: Petopia
Address:16101 SE Mcloughlin Blvd, Milwaukie
When: Saturday May 16th
Time: 11am - 2pm

Pasha's 13 Reasons to Adopt a Senior Greyhound

Streaks of silver add a touch of elegance to an already perfect face. 

Yes it is true, greyhounds age very greycefully, almost "kissed by moonlight."

We adopted Oneco when she was 10 years old. We don't know when her face became white, but we always thought she looked so soft and resembled a koala bear.

Next Saturday, May 16 from 11 a.m.–2 p.m. is our big adoption event at Petopia Natural Pet Supplies, 16101 SE Mcloughlin Blvd., Milwaukie.

It's your big chance to adopt an elegant, wild and crazy, nature-loving couch potato.

A trickster from the very beginning

Trixie retired from her racing career and worked part-time as a blood donor. Greyhounds make perfect blood donors for a couple of reasons, many of them are universal donors and they have a very red blood cell count and carry more oxygen.

However, seniors are not an option for donating... donating is for the youngsters.


Trixie

In 1996 when we adopted Trixie she was a four-year-old red brindle with a white muzzle. That white muzzle fooled people into saying things like, “She must be a lot older than your other greyhound.” Actually our other greyhound, a fawn male named Mowgli, was three years older than Trixie.


Over the years while we continued to explain that Trixie had always had a white muzzle, she became an old greyhound, a very old greyhound. She lived for fifteen years, and crossed the Rainbow Bridge on February 15, 2007, the day after her birthday on Valentine’s Day.

During her long life, Trixie was truly a trickster and assumed different roles. Her breeder in Keota, OK said that he always waited until his greyhound pups were “a good size before naming them.” He chose the name Trixie for her, because she seemed more clever than her littermates. He also said that she “made it to the track,” racing in Arizona for several years.

After her racing career ended, Trixie served time as a blood donor. She donated blood on a regular basis at Hemopet, a canine blood bank in Orange County, CA. Hemopet kenneled about fifty greyhounds as blood donors before adopting them out. We don’t know what Trixie thought about giving blood, but we do know that she didn’t like her Hemopet kennel. Her breeder had said that she was clever and he was right. More than once, Trixie undid the latch to get out so the staff nicknamed her “the escape artist”.


Trixie outlived two of our male greyhounds. She also selected a female grey, Staci, to share her home. Staci is now ten years old and she learned a few things from Trixie, including how to age gracefully.

Special treats for special ladies

Each of these senior ladies has a goodie bag ready to home with them. We have seven ladies ready for their forever home!

• STAM treats (www.stamtreats.com)
• Discount coupon for massage by Rubi (www.HealNW.com)
• Synovi G3 joint supplement (www.tevaanimalhealth.com)
• PhyCox joint supplement (www.tevaanimalhealth.com)
• Discount coupon for a custom-made greyhound coat (www.greytoutdoors.com)
• When I Am Older booklet & coupon for a free sample of Get Up & Go (www.greyhoundgang.com)
• Fancy martingale collar (donated by a couple of loving volunteers)
• Stuffie (donated by a loving volunteer)

Draw the Line!

In contrast to our focus on seniors we have some new dogs in the kennel including this adorable puppy. His name is Line and he failed to make the grade in racing school so he's ready to find a home that can take him on long walks, romp and play with a soft couch for the end of the day.

Name: Line
Racing name: Jab Me Ontheline
Color: Red brindle
Weight: 65 pounds
Born: August 1st, 2007

The Joys of Adopting a Senior Greyhound

The tale is told over and over, "I really want a young dog" and we continue to remind new adopters that seniors are the best kept secret. Tessa was just that greyhound to her momma. Seven years is not old when you are talking to a greyhound, and Tessa's momma knows just how happy a senior greyhound can make you feel.

"She has told me many, many, many times how
much joy that decision has brought into her life."

I am Tessa also known as Miss Tessa, Tessa Tessa Tigerlily, Babydog, Sweetpie, and Tessa My Lee. I was born in Ireland and after my racing career I wound up in Oregon. After raising one litter of pups, I decided it was time to retire.

I was seven years old when I met my mom. She had never had a female and wasn’t sure she wanted to adopt a senior (how absurd, I was only 7). But, all I had to do to win her heart was walk into her open arms as she knelt down. She has told me many, many, many times how much joy that decision has brought into her life.

I am the personification of the term “couch potato”. I do not believe in wasting energy on silly things like running to the door when someone comes in or even bothering to get up. I might turn my head to look at them if it suits me. Of course, if they were to offer a tasty treat, that might be a different story.


Don’t get the impression that I have never performed the “wild, insane dog” routine. Mom could always tell when I’d been flying through the house. The mattress on her bed would be sideways. What can I say, it was a great place for a banked turn! Now that I’m almost twelve, I’ve decided to leave that activity to younger dogs, like ten years old. These days, I’m content with laying in the sunny yard and a nice morning walk with only an occasional sprint through the house!


Oh yes, then there is this thing mom calls prey drive. Apparently, she believes I have a high one. About a week after I moved in, a squirrel had the nerve to come right up to the sliding door. I was obsessed. So, furniture was moved away from windows (no more standing on the bed to look out) and the sliding door became opaque. After that, I took mom on many squirrel hunts in the park (she said something about desensitizing). Mom is a terrible hunter. It didn’t take long for me to realize she seems unable to grasp the concept of stealth or understand that if she would just drop the leash the prey would be mine. She stomps her feet and makes all kinds of noise when we start getting close to those pesky squirrels, and then they run up a tree! I finally decided she is a hopeless case and I will never be able to train her to hunt. Now I look at the squirrels longingly but I’ve accepted the fact that I won’t be able to catch them before she starts making a racket.


Mom tells me I’m beautiful, sweet, silly, huggable, and sometimes a naughty pup (always said with a smile). But, the thing she tells me most often is that I’m loved and it has nothing to do with my age. I am Tessa.

Breaking News!

Heather has gone to her forever home! Woo Hoo Heather! You go girl.

25 days left in May seven seniors left to find homes.

Pasha's 13 Reasons to Adopt a Senior Greyhound

They get what a "couch potato" is right away. Picker was three months shy of 12 years old when we adopted him. It took him a month to figure out why we really had a couch.


Wouldn't you like one of the wannabe potatoes on your couch?

Windy, the canine alarm clock

So you already have a greyhound at home? A senior greyhound is a perfect addition to every family. They almost always fit in like they have been there from the beginning. And who knows, they just might keep the rest of the pack in line.

"Our lovely Miss Windy, our senior girl keeps us all
young with the joy and laughter she brings to this home."

My Dear Windy • aka I’m The Wind

Windy had 94 races and 20 puppies before she came into the adoption kennel, finally ready to spend the rest of her life in a happy home – it was not as easy to find that happy home as we would have hoped for…..

The first home she was invited to looked to be a nice home at first, but Windy just did not like it there and became very depressed. She actually stopped eating and drinking and her new family worried for her life had no choice but to bring her back to the adoption kennel. She was very thin and dehydrated.

It took a while but she returned to good health, and all of us volunteers loved ‘Miss Windy’ but as she was getting older, 9 years at the time, and due to her shyness it was clear it was going to be difficult to place her again.

I was toying with adopting one more hound – I had already 2 big wonderful boys (littermates). I was talking to one of my volunteer friends about one of the of the hounds I was thinking about but she told me that he wasn’t cat tolerant then she said “What about Windy?”


It was December and I thought about her spending another cold winter in the kennel and how I never had the experience of a senior girl before and for a moment I worried “would she be happy here?”.


Overnight she had entered my heart and I can say I could see her as part of our family and put the adoption process in motion.

By mid-December Windy came home.

She walked in and got to know the ‘boys’, found the water and food dishes and sniffed all the beds. I could tell she was home!


That day we all went for a walk and she marched happily between the boys as though they were the bodyguards of Princess Windy.

At dinnertime I worried …will she eat, that is the real TEST!

I put all the bowls down and she looked at me, I didn’t want her to think I was watching her so I pretended to be rinsing stuff in the sink but looked out of the corner of my eyes and smiled …she was digging in and ate all of her first dinner and licked the bowl clean!
She has always continued to love her meal times!

Windy soon learned the pattern of our days and she decided that the parts of the day she really cared about she would control – that would be her purpose!

So at these times she tells me in her “talkative” way -
(kind of a ouhmm ouhmm sound):

Walk time,
Dinnertime,
After dinner potty time,
Last treat time.

So, I never have to look at the clock or set a timer - Windy has it down and keeps me and the boys on track!

Windy is now 10 years old (will be 11 in July) and still runs like the wind! When I let the group out after I get home from work she is the one sprinting at full speed around the back yard and engaging the boys in a game of tag!

She is the one who pulls the toys out of the toy box to again, engage the boys to play and leap in joy - just pure joy until they are all tired out.


Our lovely Miss Windy, our senior girl keeps us all young with the joy and laughter she brings to this home.

Amazin' Gracie, a gentle reminder that every day is special

Probably the number one reason that senior greyhounds don't get adopted is the fear that their owners will become attached and lose them way to soon. It is true. In life there are no guarantees. Gracie is the perfect example. But she didn't die because of old age, she died because she got cancer, the evil disease that can affect any dog, any breed, at any age.

She came with volumes and volumes of love and she left reminding her new family that every day special.

Amazin' Gracie came to us at the very young age of ten. She had been with her family for nearly five years. Lifestyles were rigorous and the family wasn't home nearly enough to satisfy Gracie's need for them to be home. She retaliated in a big way by peeing in the house. Recognizing her dissatisfaction, her family called us, explained her situation and asked if she could  come to our house. Without a second thought, we gave an immediate yes.

I remember the day we picked her up. It was love at first sight and we knew that we could work with whatever was ahead. We put her in the car and she promptly peed in the back seat. We assured her that she wasn't going to rattle our cages, pee cleans up. She never peed in the house again.

We have a fenced acre and with great big eyes, Gracie looked at all of the grass she would have to tickle her toes. She spent the first few weeks just trotting around, soon she was running with the other greyhounds and before we knew it, she was flying from corner to corner.

She adapted to our home like she had been there forever. She quickly learned that she had a special bed right beside ours at night. By day she had a cushion in the living room, just waiting for us to come home from work.

Car rides were her favorite. If the keys made the slightest noise, that meant she was going and "no Gracie, not this time" was not an option. We even renamed the car, GUV, for Gracie Utility Vehicle.

Gracie was once described by a close friend as a very classy dog, and she was all of that. Her sweet gentle manner was the very best.

Gracie came for a visit in January, her adoption became official in May. We took her everywhere we could. In November of that year she seemed to be having some neck pain and we drove an hour and fifteen minutes each way for her acupuncture. She was a trooper though, and accepted it as just another ride in her car.

Because she could no longer go up and down the stairs, we retreated to the living room to sleep at night so that Gracie would not be without us. That was the beginning of the perpetual slumber party and to this day, all of the greyhounds thank her.

The following March, she developed a limp. X-rays confirmed our worst fears, Gracie was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in the right shoulder.

We kept Gracie comfortable and told her every day about how much we loved her, how she made our days happier and that age was only a number. Bringing her home at ten years old was the best thing we had ever done.

Three weeks after diagnosis, when the pain was getting to be too much, we held Gracie in our arms as she gently slipped away. Once again we thanked her for being a part of our lives, told her how much we loved her and we promised her that there would always be room in our home and our hearts for the senior greyhound that needed us.

We've remained true to our promise as we have welcomed home five more seniors since then: Picker--10; Roxy--9; Cleo--10; Barbie--10; and our very own Rover Reporter Pasha--12.

We had Gracie for only 14 months, but 140 years would have never been long enough. She reminded us that every day is special.