I had a great long story planned for this post but what with the problems uploading photos and all the re writing, I'll admit my initial enthusiasm has receded slightly !
All problems seem to be sorted out now as long as I change my browser for the job, which is not a major problem apart from being a bit slower ;)
Ok, back to how I ended up with another dog.
A few weeks ago, late in the day, we decided to go visit our local animal rescue 'just to have a look'.
Fatal.
There was a most gorgeous lurcher girl in there who was the spit of Harry, only smooth haired. She had a sad story and was pining for her 16 yr old mate and 3 yr old daughter who had been rehomed separately (but together if you see what I mean) and she was left. People amaze me , they really do. If you're taking two dogs, especially one that's 16 yrs old - how could you have the heart to leave the poor Mum...?
Anyway, I digress. To cut a long story short, we were 9/10ths of the way through the adoption process when the centre rung me about an 'incident' involving a cat. She had lived with cats before and was fine but she'd obviously had a change of heart. The centre were unwilling for me to even try her (muzzled) for a while to see how she went at home (they are often fine with 'their own' cats).
So that was that. Upset and disappointed, especially Lily.
So, before we (Nick !) went off the boil I contacted GRWE looking for another lurcher. After a homecheck they told me they had a young dog in kennels in my home town! He sounded like 'the one' . It happened really fast after that. One look into those big brown eyes and I knew he was coming home. A stray, found wandering, he was underweight and out of condition. No history known at all apart from that he was under 1 yr old, possibly as young as 10mths. He had a collar but no tag and there had been no enquiries about him locally or further afield.
One week on and I can't imagine him not being part of the family. There's been the odd snarl up between the boys, with Harry showing just who's top dog but nothing major. Harry is coming around to the idea that another dog around can be fun - just look at them playing.
Wilf is all I had hoped for, loving, cuddly, follows me around like a shadow, good off the lead, has recall (when it suits, like all lurchers - but pretty good), house trained and fantastic with the cats (ignores most of the time) and kids. He actually seeks Maddie out to sit with her and she spends a lot of time on his bed curled up with him or 'doing his hair'.
Well, I guess I did end up doing a 'longer' version, hopefully not too long :) If you want to find out any more about greyhounds and lurchers, please visit the site I linked to earlier in the post.
It's such a shame that these gorgeous dogs are so appalingly treated by unscrupulous people within the racing industry. Breaks my heart.
