On “Vacation”….

ANNOUNCEMENT: Please be patient with us as Lloyd travels to China to adopt our two newest children. Jen will be sole caregiver for 2 kids and 17 dogs while he is away, and will be processing applications slowly IF AT ALL until 9/9. If you submit an application, please be aware that we may not be able to finish your process until mid-September. We apologize for the inconvenience. IF YOU HAVE A MEDICAL OR BEHAVIOR QUESTION – please email Jen, as she will be responding to those!

Well, hello!

Long time, no blog. Summers get crazy around here…It’s MNGR’s busiest time both for events and for adoptions. We’ve checked off most of our major Summer gigs, including Marketfest, Highlandfest, and Pride. Still to come are the State Fair and Jesse James Days in Northfield.

We’ve also been busy on the home front. Our kidlets go to Montessori over the Summer, where they (hopefully) learn stuff and go on field trips and play soccer. They’re also in a kiddie taekwondo program called Little Ninjas, and we spend a ton of time at the martial arts school. But the biggest news is that sometime this month we’ll be adding two more humans to our pack – a little guy and a little gal, both 4-ish years old. We are battening down the hatches. This includes preparing for Lloyd to go on a 3-week trip to China, and then come home to an undoubtedly chaotic adjustment period. We may be slow to process adoptions during this time, or be forgetful about responding to emails. But keep bugging us and we’ll get to it. Excuse the brain mush — it’ll pass. At least until we have 4 teenagers…

We’ve gotten a number of dogs from Kansas this summer, and we really appreciate the Kansas-area connections that we’ve been making. They are sending us 5 new pups on Thursday; 3 boys and 2 girls. One of the girls is 7, and might be a brood momma. 7 is a great age to adopt a hound – they are still young enough to act like puppies now and again, but also settled.

There will be one boy in the bunch that we are reserving ONLY for our past adopters or past greyhound owners with references from another group. He is a special boy and unfortunately boys like him generate interest just based on appearance.  He deserves someone who wants him for who he is, not for his beautiful baby blue coat. If any of our members are interested, shoot me an email asap.

Some of our longest-term residents still wait for families because they aren’t cat-tolerant. If you are a catless home, please do consider one of these guys. Beaut and Dudley have both been living in the main house with our family dogs. They are perfect dogs. Very different personalities from one another, but both perfect just the same. I’m going to have a very hard time parting with them, and they need truly special forever families after this long wait. Anyone who adopts either of them will be getting a priceless gift.

Maker (who we’ve decided to call Jake, since Maker is really kind of a no-name name) still waits as well. He’s just a nice guy all around. Kind of a klutz, kind of a goofball, with nothing but good intentions. Unless you are a cat. We’re looking into a urinary issue with him, but it should be fixable. He’s such a pretty boy and so good-natured, he really ought to have a family by now. He’s been living part-time in our main house (he’d be in full-time if there weren’t already 9 dogs in here), and gets along with everyone including the 2-legged kids. He is SO excited to be allowed in here that he’s just beside himself. He wants a family so badly.

Then there is Gal. Can’t believe she has waited so long. Beautiful, photogenic fawn girl – but alas, a cat eater. She’s an alpha girl, so needs to be an only female. But she has personality to spare. She would be a true companion for someone. When we show her, she comes roaring out like a freight train, so excited to meet whoever it is. But give her a few minutes and she calms right down. When she’s in the house, she lays on the couch just like all the others, like she owns the place.

Of course we also have Gina (cute little black girl), Jilly (silly fawn brindle), and Fisher (SWEET black boy, slightly timid). Is that everyone?  Feel like I’m forgetting somebody…

Anyway! Now that we have our remodeled kennel, we will generally have a bit more room for boarders (unless a new haul has just come in). Depending on the population here at the time, boarding dogs either stay in the main house with our personal pets or in their own pen in the kennel (with turnout playtimes, etc). We’ve never set a price before, and have always left the donation up to the owner. However, with increased interest, we have decided to set a Suggested Donation of $15/day for the 1st dog, $12/day for the 2nd dog, 3rd dog and up $10/day depending on space. It is ALWAYS limited space and first-come-first-reserved. We only take greyhounds. Other dogs are on an extremely limited case-by-case basis, as we sometimes have greyhounds here who are not good with other breeds. Of course you are welcome to make an extra donation to the rescue if you wish, including material donations such as Kirkland dog food, large beds, etc.

In other news… If you are new to the blog, or new to dog adoption, please check out this article. It was featured this week on Yahoo!’s Lifestyles homepage. Feel free to pass it around to anyone who is thinking of getting a dog. Just a few things to keep in mind when making that decision, based on the many “bouncebacks” we’ve seen in our 10 years of adoption and rescue:

10 Reasons NOT to Get a Dog

OOH! I almost forgot the most exciting new news! Well, for me anyway – haha. A very nice, generous family has donated a 1998 Chevy Astro (that we affectionately call Astrid) to MNGR. Yes – out of the blue. We were floored. We just got her on Friday, and are still amazed that someone just gave her to us. So now MNGR has a “fleet”! We can pick up dogs from the vet AND do a home visit! We can have one van at an event, and transport hounds to and from with the other van. It is just too cool. THANK YOU SO MUCH – if you are reading this!

One last note before I close…

We are deeply sorry for the passing of one of our adoptees, Deja Vu, in July. She was lost to heat stroke, and her family misses her very much. She was only 3 years old. You were loved, Deja!

Please let Deja’s story save a life, and review the signs of heat stroke. It has been downright nasty weather, so please be careful and keep your pups inside as much as possible.

End of an era

Well, it’s the end of an era for Minnesota Greyhound Rescue today, and for the Komatsu family as well.  Today, we have a new van.  Due to our ever-growing family, we had to trade in Lola the Eurovan, our trusty Dogmobile, for a larger vehicle.  We purchased a 2005 Ford Econoline 12-seater.  We can get 4 car seats in there for human kiddos, plus take out some seats for furbabies.

While it was a necessary move, I am sad.  I loved Lola.  She has been a part of our lives since 2003.  While in Atlanta, we adopted our 4th greyhound (Tobey, still with us) and could no longer stuff everybody into my sweet little VW Beetle, Lulu.  We bought it new, shiny and beautiful, and then it lived, moved, changed with us as we added new dogs, packed up our lives and relocated to Minnesota, lost dogs, added new dogs, and added children to our lives.  We’ve had her in a million possible seating/storage configurations, stuffed her full of more things than one would have thought possible, driven with her to greyhound events in Iowa, Kansas, Jekyl Island in Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.  She has brought us hounds from all over the place.  Held up through their crazy shenanigans as just-off-the-track hounds.  Lola has been my gal.

Four hounds have died inside Lola.  When we said goodbye to Whitey and Palu (our very first greyhound), Dr M came out to sit in the van with them, and she let them go there, in a place where they were comfortable and unafraid.  My sweet and beautiful Sly stopped breathing in Lola as I frantically sped toward the vet, lost suddenly and unexpectedly to a pulmonary embolism.  A scene I still replay in my head, hoping constantly to arrive at a different ending somehow.  And Jazzy Jeff, a gorgeous fawn boy, left the world in our van after being with MNGR just two hours, never knowing a forever family.  His lungs were congested from something like canine influenza, and he could not cool his body down on the hot day.

Lola is tied up in so many memories.  She’s been a constant.  I’ve spent my first minutes with my newly adopted daughters in her, cried with a broken heart in her, sat with shaking hounds on seemingly endless middle-of-the-night rides to the emergency vet in her, welcomed new dogs in her, spent the early years of my marriage with her for the good and the difficult.  Hell, I’ve even made love in Lola.  I’m sure if you combed through her upholstery, you’d find dog hairs from my heart babies Crisco and Tanner, both gone now since 2009.  I had my last ride with Crisco the day before he died, to go pick up Apollo in Iowa.  Laid on Lola’s bed with him and tried to cajole him into eating just a little bit of peanut butter Blizzard.  What we’ve had to leave behind.

I hope her new family loves her as much as we have.  Yes, I know she’s a van.  Really, I do.  But she’s been there with us for a long time.

The new van’s name is Evangeline.  And we’re hoping to make a lot of good memories with her.

Off Topic today….

Many of you may know that I advocate for fur-less kid adoption in addition to greyhound adoption.  Today I need to spend a minute of your time on that kind of adoption.  There’s a “movement” going around the adoption blogs encouraging people to consider adoption children with special needs.  So here’s my little contribution….

I have 2 girls from China, and waiting for a third to arrive home soon.  But what follows doesn’t just apply to adoption from China.  There are waiting children there, here, and everywhere!

Many times, what prospective families see about “special needs kids” looks something like the following:

• Boy, 3 yrs, repaired cleft lip and unrepaired cleft palate 3rd degree

• Girl, 6 years, spina bifida, possible HepB

• Girl, 18 months, congenital heart defect

• Boy, 2 yrs, malformed hands and feet

But those kids are NOT their special needs.  This is WHO THEY ARE:

Then… Girl, 4 yrs, cerebral palsy, confined motion of right limbs.

Now… Sunshine, my daughter, exuberant, fearless, curious and loving.

—

Then… Girl, 3 yrs, dental abnormalities

Now… Maisy, my daughter, amazingly smart, creative, gorgeous

—

Girl, 3 yrs, missing arm (fibrosarcoma) and Hep B

Soon to be Poppy, daughter, granddaughter, sister, friend, loved child

—

These are my own beautiful and perfect children.  But I didn’t just get lucky.

Right now there are beautiful, loving children WAITING for a family to love them.

They are not broken, or too old, or second best.  In fact they are perfect.

Once you see past the label.

Boozer

Well, here’s a little update on Boozer and his first week!  Let me tell you, I am head over heels for this little guy.  And little he is — my littlest hound by far!  He has settled in so well.  The first night, he climbed right up in bed and snuggled in at my feet.  He’s been in bed every night since.  He has learned that he is allowed on the couch, and that if he stands around in the kitchen looking cute,  I often hand over a treat.  He has playbowed me in the yard, and chased Tigger around a pine tree.  For almost 13, he is a perky and spry little dude.

I do think that he is at least mostly deaf.  But he uses the other dogs for cues, so he is able to keep up with what’s going on.  He came with a pretty deep-seated toenail bed infection on his front foot, but I’ve got that mostly gone.  But he looks really good for his age.

He did give me a hell of a scare yesterday though.  I found a lump behind his left knee, where the popliteal lymph node is.  Checked his other nodes, not swollen.  Couldn’t find any other injuries that could cause a swollen node.  So of course I am convincing myself that he’s got lymphosarcoma.  (As some of you know, our little White was diagnosed with osteo just 2 weeks after we adopted him, so I have a history here.)

We went to the vet this morning, and the wonderful Dr M told me that it is NOT a lymph node!!  The lymph node is actually underneath it, but it is a FATTY CYST!  We aspirated it, and it was nice oily clear yellow fat cells.   Dr M is now my very favorite person on Earth (she was already in the top 5!!), and I am so very relieved.

He is such a good little guy, even Eyore seems to like him.  And he has gone up to 11 hours without an accident here!!  So I suspect his other home was just stressful for him.  I love my new little boy!

With Eyore....My biggest and littlest boys

If you were wondering where your bounced dog went (oh wait…you probably weren’t)

Yesterday we adopted a new family member, a 13-year-old brindle boy named Boozer, who has been with his current people since 2002. He has started to pee in the house, and since they have kids, they cannot keep him. Here’s what I say to that.

A message to Boozer’s people:

We are the family who is adopting your 13-year-old Boozer. I understand what it’s like when they start pottying in the house, especially when you are taking care of kids too… We had a 14 year old greyhound who did that too. His name was Palu. He wore diapers for the 2 years before his rear legs became too weak to walk and we had to help him die. Not a day goes by when I don’t wish I was still washing his 6 diapers a day, to still have that boy in my life.

While we had Palu, we also had 6 other greyhounds. Two of them had cancer and had their legs amputated. They were both doing chemotherapy at the same time. I sure do miss cleaning up post-chemo vomit, washing bloody bandage coverings, and helping them outside to potty in 17 inches of snow. Those two boys, Whitey and Apollo, were one of the biggest blessings in my life. I am so grateful that they found their way to me, after their other families found them to be too much trouble — even before the osteosarcoma.

We still have 6 greyhounds, mostly seniors, although thankfully none is seriously ill right now. Boozer will be our 7th. Oh, and we have kids too, just like you! Our 6-year-old has cerebral palsy and is missing nearly half her brain. She amazes me every day and her smile lights up any darkness. Our 4-year-old was left at an orphanage gate in Beijing on a cold March day. She’s the smartest and most creative child I’ve ever met. And in April, we’ll adopt our third daughter, a beautiful 3-year-old cancer survivor who is missing one arm and speaks no English. Can you believe how lucky I am? I can’t. I think Boozer will be a perfect addition to our home, and I am so happy to have him.

Are we saints? NO. We aren’t. Are we rich? Hell no! I’m a volunteer and a stay-at-home mom, and my husband works for the public schools. We are regular people. We are a family who believes in LOVE, compassion, and responsibility.

Don’t tell me that these dogs and kids are lucky to have us. We both know you’re saying that to make yourself feel better. For every drop of love we give them, they give us back oceans. We cannot imagine our lives without them.

I hope that your children are not learning from your heartless example, that family is only family when it is convenient. Otherwise, I’ll look for you under the bridges of downtown St Louis when you are old, incontinent, and…well…just not that much fun anymore.

Love,

Boozer’s Forever Mom

A Public Service Announcement

I’m a little slow on this news, since it’s a week old now, but it’s important so I wanted to make sure it gets up here.

I’m hoping that someone may benefit from my stupidity…

Last Tuesday morning, we were getting ready to take 4 new adoptables in for their spay/neuters. In the main house were our 6 personal greyhounds plus one adoptable (Dudley). I had on my “dog clothes” so Tigger and Eyore assumed that they were being taken somewhere, and started bouncing around. Then, leashes came out, and everyone started bouncing around. We gated them away from the door, and began bringing adoptables from the kennel into the garage to load into the van.

There was about 30 seconds during which both Lloyd and I were out in the garage, putting the 2 new brothers into the van. During that 30 seconds, *something* happened in the house which caused 6 of the “house” dogs to all attack my 6-yr-old boy Brad. I imagine that Brad may even have started it. But he sure didn’t finish it.

Literally 30 seconds. And the damage was extensive. The vet said she stopped counting at 12 laceration repairs. 2 into the muscle. 2 drains placed. About a 4″x4″ flap of skin hanging on one side that is necrosing and will need resuturing later. 3 of his teeth yanked sideways (presumably on another dog’s collar) and needing extraction. Thankfully, jaw bone not broken.

Every time I do an adoption into a multi-dog home, I warn people to USE THEIR MUZZLES when their dogs are unsupervised. All the time I hear, “But I’m only going to be gone for a minute.” A minute is a long time. This is what can happen in a minute. And these are dogs that live together peacefully every day and have for years.

Brad is going to be okay, but he has a long recovery ahead. And it’s our own damn fault. Everyday life — rushing around to get the dogs off to the vet and the kids off to school and ourselves dressed and ready. Taking a minute to put muzzles on the 7 dogs would have prevented Brad’s injury (and $1200 of vet bills, for what that’s worth).

So. Use your muzzles.
End of lecture.

[Everyone else is fine. Chester has one staple on top of his head (that I placed) and a tear in his ear. He has no teeth, so he really should have thought better of getting involved. Eyore has a tear in his ear and some punctures along his snout, also fixable by me. Everyone else is fine, surprisingly enough, since all were involved.]

More kennel photos

Almost there!!!

A couple kennel photos

The girls and I have been taking advantage of the empty kennel space to practice our taekwondo (or just to run around in circles like crazy maniacs, whichever). But it’s coming along. The subfloor is in, and the stainless steel sheets are up on the walls of the ledge. In a couple days the hospital-grade linoleum goes in. Then the kennels, which are in sections in my turnout yard at the moment. It’s almost done!! I can’t believe we’re finally seeing this project happen.

I’m looking forward to getting some new dogs in. There are a few waiting for me in Iowa. It seems so empty here!! Abigail, Angel, Latey, and Maker are all in foster homes during the renovation. All we have here are Gal and Dudley (plus our 6, of course). Amazing how much time that shaves off the daily routine. But I miss my crew!

As we’ve had Dudley free in the main house, mixed in with our personal pack, we’ve really gotten to know and love him. He is a wonderful boy. So sweet and cute, with a tail that never stops. When he first arrived from Daytona he was kind of bananas. I don’t think he’d ever seen a child before, and when Sunny came out to the kennel he would fall all over himself trying to get at her. Which freaked her out, which got him more excited, etc. Not great. He may have pulled a bow or two out of her ponytails during that time. So for a while I was billing him as not good with small kids. But I was WRONG! He has settled into his own in a big way, and he is a lover. He seeks out my girls for attention, lets them lead him around the house, and is sweet as pie. The other day they had on their vet costumes and were listening to his heartbeat as he slept on the couch.

He’s waiting because he’s not so great with small fuzzies. Everyone in Minnesota seems to have small fuzzies. But someone really needs to adopt this boy! He wants to have a family badly, and we are getting dangerously attached to him. We cannot keep such a young, pretty, adoptable dog. I know there’s a great family out there for him!

Here’s Dudley with Sunny:

The Big Project

I’ve had this project in my head for a couple years now, and it’s finally happening. When we moved into this house in December 2005, from Atlanta, we designed a “kennel room” for our personal 7 dogs (6 greyhounds and the schnauzer). We insulated and heated a former 3-season porch with a wall of windows. We had nice-looking wood and plexiglass pens constructed, and put in 2 couches. The plan was that, when we were away from home, our 7 dogs would hang out in there. 4 greys in pens, and 2 greys and Abby Schnauzer free to move about the room and sit on the sofas. And that worked great….for a couple months.

Then, we started MNGR. The first 5 adoptable hounds from the Shoreline Star closing were quite a shock to us, never having lived with fresh-off-the-track hounds before. All but our very first boy were older returns from other homes. And when we worked with Adopt a Greyhound Atlanta, all the adoptables stayed with Carl (not us!). They did things that our little kennel room was not designed to withstand — they put their front paws up on the wood frames of the pens and scratched them up. Chewed the wood off in chunks. Nested in the couches and wore them out. And in the switch to a new diet, had accidents that took ages to clean up. We had a “kennel room,” not a kennel. And what we need is a kennel.

I’ve talked about this on and off for ages now, but we never had the resources to make it happen, nor did we know anyone who wanted to take on this kind of project. But thanks to one of our greyt volunteers — the daddy of Sally, Suzy, Boots, Sady, and angel Molly — it is now underway.

Mr. Brad has torn everything out of the kennel, and we are awaiting the installation of a new hospital-grade linoleum floor and custom-built chain-link pens. It’s going to be MUCH MUCH easier to keep clean, have better air flow, and be laid out better to allow us to house more dogs at a time. Super excited about this!!

I’ll be posting “before” photos in a day or two, once I grab them off the camera.