Orlando Haul

Tracy and I recently took an amazing trip. A couple weeks ago, we drove to Florida to pick up the next group of Virginia greyhounds. We arrived in Longwood, Florida (just outside of Orlando) at about 1:30 pm on Thursday and went straight to the GPA/GO kennel. We spent the next couple days volunteering at the kennel and loving on greyhounds before leaving on Saturday evening for the long trip back. We met all of the wonderful people who take care of the greys at GPA/GO, got to visit one of the track kennels, and went to the races. It was such a great experience to see everything and learn more about where our Macy and Buford came from. We fell in love with greyhounds even more, if that's possible!

Every greyhound has a story and hopefully I've remembered them all correctly. When first arriving at GPA, you enter into the office, then proceed through a couple of play yards and the kennel is in back. Once in the kennel, you first see the "suites" before going into the main part of the kennel. The suites are mostly for older, injured, or returned dogs. Bones and Washita are none of these, but are in the suites area - probably just so they disturb less dogs! This sign is very true:

Bones and Washita are both very young and both described in two words "high energy". They both know just how to get what they want because they only stop barking when someone is petting them! They're still both great dogs though and are certainly memorable, they just need the right family :) Bones actually never raced and was never tattooed. One of the GPA volunteers found him on Craigslist where someone was trying to trade him for a lawn mower. Can you imagine? GPA told the guy they didn't have a lawn mower, but would pay him $100 for Bones and he handed him over. He was obviously not in a good home there! Here are the two wailers: first Washita and then Bones.

Also in the suites is Bo, just chillin'

Then we move on to Robbie. Robbie was a return and is a wonderful boy. A single man adopted him and all was well until he moved in with his fiance and Robbie didn't like her cats. Poor Robbie! He tested cat safe upon his return to the kennel. He is absolutely gorgeous too! Tracy actually said he was the best looking greyhound he's ever seen (which is a lot since he always puts our guys first of course). He is completely evenly colored, no scars, and filled out nicely. He also loves to give kisses!!! This is Robbie.




Misty is such a sweet girl. She had some blood problems at first, but is better now. Coincidentally, this was Buford's home while he was there. EVERYONE remembers Buford because he was there for so long and was so sick.



On Friday, Bob came back from major surgery. Poor guy, he even had to have some bone removed from his shoulder to put in his wrist. We wish him every success on his recovery from such a terrible ordeal.

On Saturday, another dog was returned. This is Flat Stanley. I just don't get it, what is wrong with people???!!!

There are some other dogs in the suites, but I didn't to get any good pics of them. They are Andy, Broker Brown, Cristo, and Smoke. Cristo is a sweet boy who has a broken leg and is pretty shy. I walked him on lead in the yard several times while there because he can't be turned out alone for potty breaks.

All of the remaining dogs are in the main part of the kennel.

We helped with turnout on Thursday and Friday. The boys and girls are turned out in separate pens.






The boys coming in from turnout = watch out!




Tracy cleaning the pen after turnout.


On Friday morning, we helped with feeding.


During the morning turnout on Friday, Mr. Fields (who came back with us to VA) came running back into the kennel and slid into one the crates cutting himself. Since he was going to be riding back with us, they wanted to make sure he was okay. So, Tracy and I got the pleasure of escorting him to the vet. Yep, we even got to go to Markham Woods Animal Hospital where all of the GPA greyhounds go. And guess what? Even the girls at the desk remember our boy, Buford (he certainly spent enough time with them!). The doctor had already started surgery so we had to leave Mr. Fields there. He ended up getting four staples in his rump. He reminded me so much of Buford...goofy, full of love, and seemingly oblivious to the world around him :)

Also...although we didn't get to meet Kimsam (whom I mentioned in a previous post) , we did meet his new mom and she said he's doing great. All of our well wishes must have helped because he was officially adopted on July 9 :)

Back at the kennel, we continued to give and receive lots of kisses. We also got to watch how they do the cat testing to determine if a grey is cat friendly. Here is Baxter the cat along with Master (who failed his test) and Cristo (who definitely passed).








I was so happy around all of the dogs, but I fell in love with Puddin Pop. She was absolutely adorable and had the best personality! She was so happy and even smiled when you talked to her. See for yourself in the videos.








Puddin came from a track in Naples where she was "left behind" and GPA was called for help. What kind of person could ever leave something this sweet behind is beyond me! Unfortunately (for us), Puddin had already been selected for someone. She will be living in Virginia Beach, so we'll probably never see her again :(


Tracy's girl was Reesee. She is one of the most unique greyhounds we have seen as far as her markings. She and Tracy really bonded. She kept laying her head on his shoulder and when she got out of her crate for turnout she would run straight to him. He loved her, but unfortunately they believe she may be a little too alpha to get along with our queen of the castle, Macy. Tracy spent lots of time with her. He even wanted his picture taken with her which was shocking...I usually have to beg him to be in pictures because he hates to be photographed! Here they are - don't you love her cute little black eye and black eyebrow!

Friday afternoon, we headed to the track kennels and got to visit the kennel that Macy came from. Fortunately, we were given good directions because there are absolutely no signs marking the turn into the kennel compound and you can't see anything from the road. Then we had to go through a security gate with a guard who was less than enthusiastic about a visitor. He made us pull to the side and wait for the kennel manager to come and okay us being there. This is not the kennel we went to, but they all pretty much look the same on the outside.


Here are some pictures from within the kennel. Some of them are dark, but I didn't want the flash to go off in the dogs faces and freak them out. The crates with the black muzzles hanging indicate which dogs were to race on Friday evening.


Meet the kennel favorite - Hallo Queen Bee. She has already retired and was waiting for an opening at the GPA kennel - she arrived at GPA shortly after we visited the kennel. She gives hugs - all the time!



And this was one of our favorites - Wild Coors Lite. She was another big time smiler! If had used the flash, you could actually see her in these pictures, but I'm including them anyway. She is fairly new to Orlando (from West Virginia) and had only 5starts in Orlando under her belt. She didn't do well in any of them so maybe she will find her way into rescue soon too [update: she's at the GPA/GO kennel now]. She looks vicious, but no worries...she was just happy to see us and have some company :)



And this little black female stood out since she had newspaper in her crate rather than a carpet remnant. I bent down to visit on noticed a big red gash down her neck. I asked what happened and we learned that she had been electrocuted a few nights earlier while racing. For obvious reasons, I couldn't get this little girl out of my mind, but we saw so many dogs and I just don't remember her name!


We spent about 2 1/2 hours at the track kennel and learned so much. Amanda was so generous with her time to let us spend the afternoon there. She allowed us to open any crate and visit any dog on our own while were there. We talked about their routine, care, racing stats, injuries and conditions of dogs when they arrived and of course the personaility of so many of them. She really knew her dogs well. There are 14 track kennels on the compound and each one maintains capacity at 72 dogs (because by fire law, that's all they're allowed to have). That's 1,008 dogs just at that one track and knowing that we were surrounded by over a thousand sweet faces living in such conditions was really depressing. The kennel we were at was clean and the dogs were taken care of, but the owner fully admitted that not all of the other kennels there maintained the same standards (I'm sure we would have never been allowed to visit one of them).

Friday night we went to the races. We didn't make any bets (except between each other), but the dogs are still absolutely gorgeous when running.


GPA holds a meet and greet at the track and we ran into Kebo Egg Nog. There is little or no interest from this M&G, but GPA still holds it more for political reasons. I think the only money they got was what we put in his pocket. Egg is such a good boy - isn't he handsome?


I wasn't allowed to use the flash at the track so these pics could be better too. I was told that if the flash goes off, they have to cancel that race and give everyone's money back - yikes! We got enough stares just by taking pictures, I was definitely not going to have a bunch of angry betters after me!





As it got darker, I got LOTS of phantom pictures like this one. Not sure if it was me or the camera, but I was pretty disappointed with most of them - oh well!


As we left, I took a picture of the trucks - this is where all of the dogs wait when they are not racing. You could hear them howling and barking and it was HOT! We went in the evening, but I imagine they are left in there during the afternoon races as well when it is even worse!


Saturday we loaded up 5 beautiful hounds for the trip north. After spending about 14 hours in the van with these guys, I became pretty attached. It's amazing how much you learn about each one in just a short amount of time. The kennel volunteers were all teary eyed as we left too. You can just imagine how attached they get spending day after day with all the greys.









We wish everyone well on continued success at adjusting to retired life. The entire trip from start to finish was very special and I am so glad we were able to do it!

Whew - I am so glad I finally had time to finish this. I feel like I spent as much time sorting through pictures and posting everything as I did on the trip!!!