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See the Events Calendar for our monthly Meet and Greet events and for more details on the events below.
1/17 GreySave Foster Home/Adoption Rep Meeting 2/21 GreySave Spa Day Support GreySave when you shop at Amazon by clicking below (how this works) (866) Grey-Save 866-473-9728 |
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September/October 2007
We publish our online newsletter, GreySave Scoop, to keep our friends and volunteers up to date with what has been happening at GreySave. If you know someone who would enjoy receiving our newsletter, please forward this edition and tell them that they can register on the web at http://greysave.org/mailinglist.php to receive their own copy. Your feedback is important– please share your comments with us! News You Need to Know Ralphs Community Contribution Program: Sign up now to benefit GreySave Go to http://ralphs.com/ccprogram.htm and fill in the Participant information. GreySave is organization #84135. Ralphs sends your contributions every quarter to GreySave! Scan your Ralphs Card every time you shop and feel greyt that you are helping save these marvelous creatures.
VCA Central Animal Hospital has a program where Greyhounds can donate blood to the hospital to help save lives of other dogs. Greyhounds are able to donate blood every two weeks if need be. In return for the donation, credits will be applied to the GreySave account for future Greyhound medical needs. To qualify for the program, our greyhounds must have a health screening and give a blood sample to make sure they are free of infectious diseases. GreySave volunteer Nancy Sharp reports: My greyhounds, Kyra (6), and Marco Polo, aka Stinger (3), are now in the blood donor program at VCA Central. Whenever there is an urgent need for canine blood and the hospital does not have enough from their own blood donor dog, they call upon our Greyhounds in the blood donor program. Kyra was a blood donor mid-August. She did not suffer any ill side-effects from donating. It is a great feeling to know that they are happy and healthy. It is a wonderful way to help GreySave and to also help other animals in need of blood. Celebrating Greyhounds Calendars: We just received our order of 40 wall Calendars and will be selling them at the next Homecoming day, Spa days and the Spaghetti Social if any are left by then. We are charging $13 each and that includes the sales tax. If it turns out that these go like hot cakes at a neighborhood pancake breakfast, I will take orders for them and also for the Desk Calendars if anyone wants one. New mailing rates make these very expensive to mail so please pick yours up at an event if at all possible. If you absolutely cannot pick up a calendar at an event and desperately want one (or several), call Cathy Kiburtz at 626-354-8476. Muzzle Round-up: We are about out of old muzzles. If you have a used track muzzle and IF you are sure you will never need it please bring it to the next Homecoming day, Meet &Greets, Spa day or any other GreySave event and toss it back into our stock pile. Why do we need them? When we go to the track we bring several with us to replace any we see broken on dogs in the pet kennel or on the dogs we are bringing back; we also give them out to new adopters, especially those with cats. As a result we periodically use more than we collect and prefer not to have to buy new ones. Also if you have broken muzzles please send them along too since we actually have someone who will fix them! Greyt Vets Needed: GreySave has been expanding the geographic areas where we have foster homes and we are looking for a few more greyhound savvy vets. We believe the best people to put us in touch with these greyt vets are you, the adopters. If you have a vet that you trust with your greyhound and you think he or she would like to work with GreySave, especially when it comes to the basic medical work such as spay, neuter, and dental, please give me a call. GreySave, of course, would be looking for a discount on the services! Vets will be meeting foster families in their area who also have greyhounds, be recommended for those who adopt in the area, have the benefit of being on our website list of greyt GreySave vets, and probably become the vet of choice for all the animals a greyhound family owns. This formula has worked for several of our current vets who now benefit from large numbers of greyhounds in their practices. And we all know that greyhounds pay! Between bad teeth, rips, shots and all the other little medical things they do or get, greyhounds are the “cash cows” of the dog world! Cathy Kiburtz 626-354-8476
To increase public awareness regarding greyhounds as pets, GreySave participates in and sponsors a number of events each month. If you would like to participate or attend an event, details on these and others that may be added can be found at www.greysave.org/events.php: Sunday,
September 30: Manhattan Beach Pet Appreciation and Adoption Day Sunday, September 30: Pasadena Humane Society Wiggle Waggle Walk Saturday, October 6: GreySave Spa Day When was the last time you bathed your Greyhound, cleaned his ears, and trimmed his nails? You can avoid that task and help raise money for GreySave Greyhound Adoptions while others give your dog the royal spa treatment at the GreySave Spa Day Fundraiser.
• CHINO HILLS: NOTE: As of Sept 27 this location was fully booked.
Both locations will have light snacks and drinks for sale. At the Chino Hills location, your Greyhound will also have the opportunity to run and play with other Greyhounds.
Since bathing capacity is limited, reservations are required. If you use the e-mail option to make your reservation, please indicate a time block you and your hound would be available so we can space out the reservations. • To make a reservation at the Pasadena location, call Cathy Kiburtz at 626-354-8476 or at cathy@greysave.org.
If you can be one of those wonderful volunteers who help with washing, ear cleaning, or nail trimming, please let either Bonnie or Cathy know as soon as possible.
Saturday, October 13: 10th Annual Dog Faire and Pet Adoption Saturday, October 13: Pet Adoption and Environmental Fair Saturday, November 10: GreySave Spaghetti Social
Since I started volunteering for GreySave I've accompanied Cathy on several trips to Agua Caliente to help her bring back greyhounds. Each trip has been a tremendous experience from start to finish, and the best part is knowing that each batch of hounds is going to loving homes. It's really fun to be a part of that process. John and I recently lost our girl Sachi, so the last Homecoming trip was extra-special - it was my opportunity to see one of these pups through the process the whole way, from the track to my sofa. As soon as we enter the pen with them, they mob us, almost all vying for attention. Some are more forward than others, and there are a few shy ones who hang at the back of the crowd. Cathy and the rest of us scan the pack for those we'll bring back, looking for that je ne sais quois that makes one dog stand out from the others. Sometimes it's easy - if there's an injury there's no question of leaving that dog behind. A broken leg or sore paw is an instant ticket out. Other times it's trickier, since all the dogs are appealing. On this particular trip I was looking for that special girl to call my own - a foster-with-intent-to-adopt. I tried harder than ever to not be seduced by a pretty face. Two little girls came to me out of the pack, and each at one moment gave me the "Big Lean." One, a brindle, was really sweet, and the other was a little white girl with a brown patch over one eye. I hoped that one of these would be the "one" for me, but I also knew that both would be great pets regardless. So, along with the rest of the pups we had selected, these two girls were loaded into the back of Dave's truck and off we went. It always seems like the time we spend at the track is over so quickly! The hardest part of the trip to the track isn't the distance or the early hour - it's that short bit across the border itself. Traffic coming into the U.S. is lined up and funneled through a handful of gates at the border crossing and we're lucky if we can get back to the U.S. side in an hour (it took us 15 minutes to travel the same distance going into Tijuana). Once across the border with our repatriated pooches it's just a matter of driving another two hours with 5 - 7 rambunctious, frightened and sometimes bickering hounds to keep an eye on. Piece of cake! A squirt bottle is handy for keeping the peace during the ride. Other than a potty-stop halfway, it's a straight shot back to Cathy's house, where the welcoming committee is waiting.
Adoption News Since the July-August Newsletter, 11 GreySave hounds have found their Forever Homes. They are:
You can see their photos and profiles on the Adopted Greyhounds page. Congratulations to all these precious greys and those who love them!
GreytLove Fund News The Greytlove Fund was established to help take care of the extraordinary medical needs of some of the special greyhounds GreySave brings in. Whether it is a broken leg, a long-term illness, or some other injury or accident, the medical costs for these greys can be very high. All money donated to the Greytlove Fund is used exclusively for the extraordinary medical needs of our greyhounds. If you would like more information on contributing to this fund, either by check or through PayPal, see the Donation website page at http://greysave.org/donations.php. If you would like to talk to someone about fostering or otherwise helping one of these broken leg or medical greys, contact us through info@greysave.org. Two greyhound girls are currently benefiting from the Greytlove Fund which is paying a portion of their medical costs (see photos of them at the bottom of the Adoptables Page on the GreySave website). Here is a brief summary of their injuries and status:
Foster Tails: Advice to New Foster Hounds (From a Seasoned Veteran) Dear Newbies: Researching Your Grey's Background and Racing History Whether your dog was a star or a washout, he’s a winner now because he’s part of your pack. Sometimes though, we get curious about where our dogs have been before they made our lives complete. Did you know that all racing greyhounds are in a National Breeding and Racing Database? If your greyhound has an ear tattoo, he or she is in the database. It shows the dog’s pedigree for five generations, his racing name, all of his races – when, where, what place he finished in, comments about how he did in each race – and other statistics. When a greyhound comes home to GreySave, we go into the database and update it to show that the dog has been adopted through our group. We also add our telephone number and website address. As an extra bonus, we add the greyhound’s picture. Your GraySave grey has its photo on the database! But first we do some research to find out the background on the dog. When we get to Caliente, Mexico, we are not handed the greyhound’s pedigree. We are only handed a leash with a greyt dog on the other end. When we get home, we search the database using the left ear tattoo number, which lists all the dogs in that litter. We narrow it down by male or female, color, racetrack, and date of last race. By the process of elimination, we can accurately figure out which dog we have. If there is any doubt at all, we contact National Greyhound Association. By the way, we also use the right ear tattoo, which indicates the month and year the dog was born. For instance, the right ear tattoo for Wagtail Cutie is 65E. That translates as June 2005. The “5” could also indicate a greyhound born in 1995, but we get very few 12-year-old dogs from the track.
It’s fun to look at the pedigrees and races. We recently discovered that Dublin and Daisy are sisters! Often the littermates do not race at the same track or even in the same state, so we were really excited when we got the two sisters, although we unknowingly picked up Daisy a month later. Since they don’t look very much alike, we probably would never have guessed they were related without looking at the Database.
If you would like to check out your greyhound’s history, enter the left ear tattoo at: http://www.greyhound-data.com/earmark.htm. If you have trouble reading the tattoo clearly, try shining a flashlight through from the furry side of the ear – that sometimes helps clarify a confusing number or letter. For more information about the Greyhound Database, the information it contains and how to track your greyhound's lineage, go to the article on the GreySave website at http://greysave.org/racing.php. By Steffanie Jarvis
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Greyhounds Save Lives as Blood Donors
During the ride back, both of the girls I'd picked proved to be really friendly and outgoing, each competing with the other for who got to put her head forward into the cab for petting and a better view. I knew it was going to be hard to choose. At Cathy's house, I spent time watching both get bathed and put through the Homecoming process, and came to the conclusion that both had great potential, but since we'd just lost a brindle girl, I decided to foster the white one, who was given the name Lily (pictured at right). She took the whole process with aplomb, from the bathing to the vetting, ate with gusto and wanted more, and proceeded to fail miserably at the cat and small-dog testing. Since we don't need our hounds to be cat-safe, I felt it was a sign that she'd be a good fit for us. Lily was a little confused when I asked her to leave with me - she wasn't too sure she wanted to leave the rest of the foster dogs, but when I hoisted her into my car she got comfy and rode home as if she'd been riding in cars her whole life.
At my house I put a muzzle on our boy, Cosmo, and let him meet Lily (also muzzled) in our fenced front yard (Cosmo and Lily at right). He was absolutely thrilled to see a new face, and wanted to play right away, but Lily wasn't so sure. He followed her around intently while she investigated our yard, and when there were no signs of hostilities I brought both of them into the house. After letting Lily look around our living room and kitchen for a few moments I took them both straight into the back yard, waited for her to relieve herself and praised her to high heavens - it's never too early to start house-training. I also made her come back into the house (following Cosmo) through the dog-door. For the first week or so that she lived with us she was only allowed to go in or out through that door, even when I was going with her, to make sure that she understood the process. At first I would take both dogs outside, but I would feed her leash through the dog-door and guide her through. Later I would go out and meet her on the outside . . . or go in and meet her inside . . . and by the end of her first week she not only understood the process, she was taking the initiative and going out on her own to use the yard. She's only had two accidents in the house and both were my fault - I just wasn't paying attention to the signs she was giving that she needed to go outside.
Summer came to GreySave on April 11. She was critically ill and not expected to survive her illnesses. She was emaciated, blind and having seizures, but had a strong will to live. Summer’s illness has been maddening to diagnose. It appears that she had multiple problems from the start and, as one got cleared up, another became visible. Though still very thin, Summer is now hopefully stabilized thanks to excellent medical care and love from lots of supporters. Last month we thought she was on the path to health but, as it goes with Summer, she had a relapse. She has now been diagnosed with kidney disease and is on a low protein diet and kidney meds. We know now that she may never be the picture of a healthy greyhound. However she is certainly a happy and friendly and has made it quite clear that she has decided to stay with her foster mom and dad forever, as long as that may be. (Editor's Note: On September 27, Summer crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. She passed away peacefully in the company of her family. Our hearts go out to Cathy and Alan and their greyhound gang.)
Berlin came to GreySave on July 21 and with a damaged right hock. Her injury was determined to be ruptured tendons. Unfortunately these tendons stabilize the hock and couldn’t be repaired and the orthopedic specialist recommended fusing her hock. She underwent surgery and is recovering in her foster home. So far Berlin has shown us that she is one fun-loving and determined girl. She is gorgeous, sweet and lovable but really would prefer being out in the pack, going on walks or tossing around the fluffies that she collects near her bed. She goes back in for a recheck and another x-ray in a couple of weeks and is looking forward to being out of the bandage and out of the x-pen in the not too distant future. 
