The Case of the Stolen Guinness…

The other day, my Facebook and Flickr friend Lydia Martin of BlueFox Photography stuck a post on Facebook that made me think of our Greyhound Tigger.

Tigger was our dog when the kids were still pretty young.  He died in 2008.  We adopted him off the track through a wonderful Greyhound rescue organization Greyhound Options.  It didn’t take him very long to realize that he had at long last hit the jackpot and he settled in fairly quickly and easily.  We bought him a big bed and he spent most of his time on it curled up on it in the middle of the living room in front of the fireplace.

I remember one night when I had had a busy day.  The kids were finally in bed and Greg was out of town. I was ready to have a little time to myself and to watch some television.  I just wanted to relax.  I went and looked in the refrigerator and there standing on the shelf was one can of Guinness.  It shone like a beacon to my weary soul.  I took it out, opened it and poured it slowly into a beer mug.  Because I like my dark beers pretty close to room temperature, I took it into the living room and put it on the coffee table to allow it to warm up a little and turned on the TV.

Then the phone rang.

Those were the days before caller ID when I felt that I had to actually answer the phone every time it rang, so up I got and back into the kitchen I went.  I don’t remember who was calling.  I imagine it was Greg telling me he got to his final destination safely, but I wouldn’t swear to it.  The call only took a few minutes.  When I returned to the living room, Tigger was sleeping on his bed, the TV as on, the cats were in their usual places and my mug of Guinness was empty.

Tigger never admitted to drinking my Guinness but I know that cats didn’t do it.  I mean they were cats after all and only 30 year old Scotch whiskey or the best Champagne would do for them, I’m sure, if they bothered to indulge.  It had to be the dog.  He didn’t seem to suffer any ill-effects from his indulgence and I couldn’t stay mad at him for more than a couple of seconds.  I went back to the kitchen with my empty mug and brought back some ice water.  Just watching my relaxed dog helped me relax and we all had a nice evening.

Tigger was a great pet.   We never regretted our decision to make him a part of our family.  I think that some people have misconceptions about what it would be like to live with a Greyhound.  Here are some things that we learned about Greys after our boy came to live with us.

Greyhounds are just big couch potatoes.  Sure they love a good walk, but they don’t need a lot of vigorous exercise.  While there may be exceptions to the rule, a Greyhound is a mellow, gentle dog.

You can have Greyhounds around small pets.  Not all of them are good around small pets though.  After all, they spent their days on the track being taught to chase small animals.  But most of the Greyhound adoption agencies try to figure out if the individual dog is cat and small dog safe.  When Tigger came to live with us, we had two cats.  As it turned out, our cat Asta fell in love at first sight and the two were the best of friends throughout Tigger’s life with us.

A lot of Greyhounds love to sing.  When Tigger came to live with us, we thought it would be fun to teach him how to sing Take Me out to the Ballgame.  He took to it quite enthusiastically.  Then we decided that maybe we didn’t want a singing Greyhound and quit encouraging him.  In reality, Greyhounds are very quiet dogs.  But being hounds, they do howl now and then.  When Tigger was a young dog, every time I would get home from somewhere I could hear him singing in the house before I opened the door.  I don’t think he was singing Take Me out to the Ballgame, I’m pretty sure he was singing, “I love you, Barb, and I’m so glad you’re home.”

If you have room on your floor and room in your heart and are on the look-out for a dog, consider finding a Greyhound adoption agency in your neck of the woods.  Greyhounds make GREYT pets!

P.S.  My daughter Carrie and I are embarking on a road trip next week so I’m not sure when I’ll see you again.  Happy Summer Solstice to You All!

At the Apple Country Fair…

Yesterday morning I had to get up at the crack of dawn.  It was the day of the Apple Country Fair in Brookfield, Massachusetts and our church (The Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church), which sits on the Brookfield Common, takes advantage of the ready-made crowd by holding our annual yard, tag, rummage sale that day.  I was in charge of the first shift in the book department.

Bleary-eyed that I was, I had to drive through Dunkin’ Donuts for a large coffee on the way.  Had they had extra large, it would have been just the thing, but I settled for large.  Then with fortifications in my cup holder, I drove on into Brookfield.  It was a gorgeous morning with hardly a cloud in the sky.  It was so beautiful I had to pull over to watch the sun and mist on the Quaboag River for a few minutes. 

The light was just so fantastic, that I kept thinking that I really do need to make a habit of getting up earlier.  But I know that will never happen.  Still, why not take advantage of it when it does happen to happen?

I worked my shift and managed to sell quite a few books.  I was very impressed by one woman who came in a bought a large stack of reading workbooks and simple readers for a student of hers who in third grade has not yet learned to read.  That’s dedication!  It made me feel grateful for dedicated teachers who go that extra mile as so many do.

When my relief arrived, I decided to wander around the Common for a little while to see what I could see.  The first thing that caught my eye was a couple of boxes of old milk bottles that someone had donated to our sale.  Way cool!  I struck up a conversation with a fellow who seemed to know about these kinds of things.  One that impressed me had some stuff inside.  He quickly told me that maybe I didn’t want that particular bottle as it contained a compressed and mummified mouse.  Yuk!  I didn’t buy a bottle, but now wish I had…just not the one with the mouse.  Oh, well….such is life.

Wandering around the common, I came across some pretty ingenious transportation for the ever popular Scooby-doo painted pumpkin.

And I met a beautiful greyhound girl who was glad to let me scratch her ears.  In return, she leaned on me and her owner told me that in her family, they call that move a “greyhound hug.”  Well, I couldn’t figure anything could top that, so since I had been up since the crack of dawn, I let the next guy get a good scratch in and went home.