Week #3 – The “Happy” Tale

Walking into my townhouse a few days ago my roommate would have sworn that she had just walked into a crime scene. Beginning inside the front door, up the stairs, into the living room covering the walls and floors were splashes of blood. While she briefly expected to find an unidentified body somewhere in the living room, she instead found Janie, wagging her tale and as excited as she always is when someone comes home. However, on this particular day Janie was covered in blood and our other dog was nowhere to be found.

A few minutes later I received a call at work from my roommate frantically explaining that something had happened and that I needed to get home right away. I hastily explained the situation to my boss and rushed home in record time. When I walked in the door I was surprised by the amount of blood that covered the walls, I had hoped that in the heat of the moment my roommate was exaggerating the mess, but sure enough it looked like a murder had taken place. When I reached the top of the stairs I found my roommate examining Janie and looking completely puzzled. Janie was indeed covered in blood but because she is black it was hard to find the source, and at the time she didn’t seem hurt so she wasn’t exactly cooperating with our inspection of her body. A few minutes later we found our other dog hiding upstairs, all in one piece, clean of any blood, so we let him be and turned our attentions back to Janie. It wasn’t until I got Janie to hold still that I noticed a trail of blood dripping from her tail.

To make a long story short, my roommate and I immediately took Janie to the vet. Two staples, some glue, and lots of bandaging, Janie later emerged with the vet and a tail looking like this:

The vet explained that Janie’s tail injury is a common injury amongst breeds with long slender tails such as Greyhounds and Great Danes, and added that it would take a “while” to heal. What I didn’t know, until I got home and jumped right onto my computer was that that this injury had its own name, “Happy Tail” Syndrome. Reading through many of the Greyhound blogs that night I found that this was indeed quite common and had happened to many people that own Greyhounds. I felt relieved to be finding such information.

You see, the community of Greyhound owners and bloggers had helped me many times before, even before I got Janie. I was so intrigued by their presence online when I initially began my search for a dog that I can honestly say that it was because of the blogs filled with truthful information about the ups and downs of owning a Greyhound that I ultimately went with the breed. It was more than the blogs; it was an online community of people that I still feel connected with today. Even more so it can also be a support group, especially when I find yet another story of someone who’s experienced the same struggles as I have. I often find myself keeping up with these pages just to learn more about Janie, which is what I’ve set out to do in the first place. And hopefully by next post Janie’s “happy” tail will be a healed tail.

Week #2 -The Search

From the time that I had first moved to Virginia in September 2009 until this past May, I had begged my parents for a dog. Now I know that may sound silly, being that I should be old enough to make such decisions, but at that time I still relied heavily on my parents financial assistance. This meant that if I wanted a dog, I would need to convince them that it was a great idea.

My best argument at the time was that I had grown up with dogs and living by myself proved to be lonely and honestly boring. I was constantly calling my fiancé and parents complaining of my need for a dog. My parents argument, that until last May won over and over again, was that I couldn’t devote the proper time to raising a puppy. Reluctantly, I was forced to agree. I worked full time, I traveled on the weekends and I really had no experience in puppy training. But I was determined to have my way, which is one of my best traits being an only child.

So my search for the perfect companion began. I scoured the internet looking at every different breed. As a communications major I truly had to appreciate the ease at which I could log onto the internet and not only find websites, but blogs from various breed owners re-counting the ins and outs of owning a certain kind of dog. In the Cluetrain Manifesto Levine et al (2009) explains in regards to the internet how the “percentage of ‘raw’ content published, direct from a creators fingers to our eyes, is much higher than traditional media. The Web’s low cost of entry to publishers, both small and large, and the amount of unfiltered chat/newsgroup/e-mail text finding its way into search engines guarantees our daily browsing experience has a very strong flavor of individual authorship.” Levine goes on to say that “our heightened awareness of distinct individual voices engenders the urge to talk back, to engage, to converse.

It was through the internet and the ease of accessibility that brought me to many different blogs about Greyhounds. From reading people’s first hand experiences I was able to determine that a Greyhound would be the perfect pet. As I had mentioned in my first post, I hope this this blog will show why these animals make such great companions and, in particular, why Janie has made my life down in VA so enjoyable.

My Grey Obsession

For the past year or so I’ve toyed with the idea of starting a blog. However, when I would finally take the time to sit down and get one started I would end up spending more time staring at a blank screen trying to pinpoint exactly what I wanted to blog about then I would actually creating the blog. It wasn’t until recently, after I attended my first Social Media class, that the idea finally hit me or in this case nudged me.

While we were required to start a blog for the semester, our professor allowed us to choose anything to blog about whether it was about our lives, our interests or a simple blog created for class discussion. I of course went straight home, plopped on the couch, and began to stare once again at my computer. The same unanswered thoughts started running through my head; there were just so many directions I could take the project. It wasn’t until I felt a familiar wet nose nudge my leg that inspiration finally hit. I peered over the top of my screen to see my beautiful Greyhound Janie giving me that all too familiar look, a look that makes me feel like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. It couldn’t have been more obvious; I needed to blog about her.

I’ve named my blog “MyGreyObsession” because I’m simply in love with my Greyhound. Since adopting her in May, she’s brought so much happiness and adventure into my life which I would like to share. I would also like this blog to be a space for me to document my feelings and experiences as I explore the different aspects of the Greyhound world, including life on the track, the controversy over dog racing, and the lives of retired racers.

I hope that people will join me and share their experiences, advice, and thoughts as I continue on this journey. And just maybe, if I’m lucky, I can convince someone out there how wonderful it is to adopt a Greyhound.