The Pickup

Thursday evening I had the pleasure of bringing Tessa, Duchess, Cha Chi, and Holly back from Perry.  Nona and Melissa had picked them up at the prison in Quincy, Florida that morning and drove them to Perry to meet me at Priester's for the hand off (thanks again guys!).  What a great bunch of dogs!  They sleep the entire way back and not a peep was heard from anyone!  Just perfect behavior!

I have to say this is my first time fostering one of the pups from the prison foster program and boy am I really impressed.  I have Tessa who is smart as a whip.  And cute, to boot!!  We already have an applicant interested in adopting her so I don't imagine I'll have her for too long.

Hearing about how wonderfully trained the prison pups are is a different beast than seeing it first hand, I have to say and I am thoroughly enjoying Tessa and running her through the gammit of verbal commands that she knows. 

Makes me wish I could send my four there for training!! But alas, that is not possible.  I have to live vicariously through the prison pups and dream that mine are that well trained!!  Actually it gives me great incentive to work on training mine a bit more.  They do know "sit" and "down" but that is about it. 

The command that I most appreciate that the prison pups know is "stay".  The "stay" command  is always a command and behavior that is beneficial for any dog to know, especially Greyhounds. This is something I've tried to teach my own, but it's not quite sunk in with them yet mainly because they think they must always be by my side!   They also learn "drop", "kennel up", "hurry", "come", and a host of other commands.  All are fantastic for them to know!!  And its way fun for the handler, too!

I do believe my dogs are jealous when they see the things that Tessa can do.  Perhaps it will rub off on them before she goes to her forever home!!  I can dream, can't I?

Our First Meeting

What a fun-filled first meeting we all enjoyed last night! Our dedicated group filled up the far side of the restaurant, so we wouldn't scare the other diners with our talk of inmates, dog hauling and all-things greyhound. We may have to look for a new location if we keep growing at the rate we are!

Program Progress

There is great excitment in this group and a profound enthusiam to see greyhounds that we haul from the track working with inmates that we have trained. While we're all ready for this to happen tomorrow, we know that it takes a bit of time, but progress is being made with the DOC and with finalizing our 501(c)3 status. It's a lot of paperwork right now, but the fun will start soon enough. Fingers crossed we'll have dogs behind bars by June.

Fundraising

We have several fundraisers scheduled for March including the Wine Tasting and Microchipping Clinic. Be sure to check out the calendar for additional information on these programs. I know there are just a few slots open for the Wine Tasting in early March, so register today if you plan to attend.

Don't forget to check out the SCG Cafe Press Store. There are some really unique greyhound designs for sale, both with and without our logo, so no matter where you live you can support SCG and look fashionable at the same time. I know I've got my eye on the Greyt Beach shirt myself.

Kimberly Walker Morris' prints are also selling quickly. Be sure to buy yours today so you don't miss your chance to have a signed and numbered reproduction of her beautiful pencil sketch of a sleeping greyhound.

Up & Coming Events

If you're looking for a Greyt gathering in May, think about attending Mountain Hounds with your SCG friends. In addition to hosting a table to sell some of our awesome Greyhound wares, we'll hold seminar about our program. We'll post the time of our presentation so those of you who are interested can stop in and meet us face-to-face.

This is just a sampling of what we have going on. Stay tuned, as there are more exciting things in store in just a few weeks!