Recap of Siesta's First Month: Part 2

Racing Sessions with Oliver
For the first week or two with Siesta we thought that a docile dog like her just didn't do rambunctious play like most typical dogs. Turns out we were WRONG. I think it took her that long to figure out that we were good doggy parents and that when Ty gets down on all fours and pretends he's a dog, he is showing love not aggression. Our good friends, Alice and Perry, have an adorable puppy, named Oliver, who finally drew Siesta out of her shell.
One evening over at Alice and Perry's apartment, Oliver was relentlessly trying to coax Seista into rough-housing when she finally gave in. It was hilarious! She started by play-bowing to him and barking, and man, she has a loud voice when she finally talks! I guess greyhounds are known for their clacking teeth when they are play fighting together and Siesta is no exception. Oliver was stunned and a little nervous with this drastic change in her, but still VERY intrigued. All of a suddened - OFF SHE FLEW - across the dining room and through the front room! She was as close as she could get to full speed in the two huge paces it took her to get from one end of a room to the other. Then, TURN and BACK DOWN THE ROOM THE OTHER WAY! She was quite a sight. I was just as stunned at Oliver, but my reaction was side-splitting laughter. She was hilarious! She didn't knock anything over, though Oliver did get in her path once or twice and was nearly plowed down. Then as abruptly as she started, she stopped. Literally 1 minute of all out exercise and she was pooped!
Since this escapade she has done the "crazy sprinting" act a couple more times - both in our tiny apartment and back at Alice and Perry's. It's typically accompanied by the clacking fake bites and a few loud barks, but it is PRICELESS. I'll try to get it one video sometime.

Oliver's Birthday Party
Siesta's best friend, Oliver, had his one year birthday party a few weeks ago. Oliver is a Vizsla and came from the same litter as Alice and Perry's friends (Leah and Bob) dog, Nutmeg. Nutmeg looks just like Oliver just a little more petite and lighter in color. They are adorable brother and sister. Since Nutmeg was from the same litter she shares a birthday with Oliver, so it was really a party for both dogs at the local dog park. Siesta met all kinds of dogs, flashed some incredible speed in a big sprint around the dog park, and was pooped. You're getting the pattern, right? Here are some great photos from the party.

This is Alice (left) and Leah (right) in the human park beside the dog park with the human birthday cakes Leah baked. The chocolate cakes were awesome and even had stenciled Vizslas in icing sugar on top. I don't have a picture, but Perry made a meat-loaf cake for the dogs to eat.


This is Siesta walking by a cute puppy that was invited to the party.

Perry throwing a toy for Oliver and Nutmeg (left of Perry).


Recycling Naughtiness
Besides the increase in play behavior, Siesta has started testing some boundaries when left home by herself. Specifically, she has taken to taking items out of the recycling bin in the kitchen and placing them around her bed - which happens to be in our bedroom. Needless to say I am not crazy about coming home to trash strewn about my bedroom. Luckily, nothing was too messy, but still! Gross!
I tried telling her "no, no, no," but she just kept doing it! So we've taken to removing the temptation, by putting a lid over the recycling bin. So far that has kept her from "decorating."

Wearing out her bed

As you can see above, Siesta stays true to her name and sleeps roughly 18 hours a day. When we first adopted her, Ty and I tried to figure out what type and size of bed to get. We went with cheap and big, but with all that time sleeping on her bed - she literally wore it out in a month! So, I gave in and bought her an air mattress made specially for arthritic old dogs and I put it under the bigger old bed. If she could talk she'd tell you that she LOVES the new combination! It's virtually impossible to get her off it these days.

Recap of Siesta's First Month: Part 1

Separation Anxiety and Whimpering
Siesta came from a Kennel in Massachusetts originally. While at the kennel she had the company of other dogs all the time. While undergoing surgery on her broken leg in Boston she was lucky enough to spend most of the time at a foster home with dogs of their own. After she was all healed up she came to Stacey (WAG) in Connecticut and she was very happy to have the company of Stacey's dogs as well as her large family. In fact Stacey is lucky enough to spend most of her days at home with the dogs.
So when Siesta moved in with Ty and I we expected she might experience some anxiety when left home all by herself during the day. We started off with her in the kennel for a couple hours at a time. She always willingly went into her kennel, but as she watched us leave the apartment she would start to whimper (heart-breaking). Our downstairs neighbor even heard her after we left a few times. She is a sweet lady -- she brought up a stuffed bunny for Siesta that she sleeps with all the time.
That first week of work I would come home every couple of hours to take her outside and play with her, but I got the feeling that she was to be trusted with great roaming of the house. So we slid the kennel with her bed up to the doorway to the kitchen and let her walk around in there as well as sleep in her bed. It became obvious that she didn't really need to go to the bathroom every 4 hours and it seemed like the coming and going was more torturous than happy. So I stopped coming home at lunch and she easily transitioned to being home all day on her own. Miraculously the the whimpering just subsided. Of course she is still unhappy when we leave, but she pretty much stops as soon as we're gone. Excepting that whimpering didn't help, and knowing that we'll be coming back.


First Trip to the Vet
During Siesta's first week at home I make an appointment at the closest vet to get a wellness check up. I knew they were familiar with Greyhounds cause they are an animal hospital and they do many of the spays and neuters for the local adoption groups, like WAG. Everyone there seemed very friendly, but Siesta was really not happy to meet the Vet. She typically greets EVERYONE with kisses and a wagging tail, but some how she knew this woman was different. Over all I was not a fan of the vet. She was very thorough, but almost to the extent of being overly enthusiastic to take unnecessary action. She said that Siesta was missing a puppy shot in her records so she wanted to give that to her as well as a Lime's Disease Vaccine. Also, she wanted her to come back in a couple of months to have her teeth cleaned. Luckily, I sort of hesitated and said that I would come back for everything cause today wasn't a good day. I got in touch with Lindsay from WAG and she wonderfully helped me sift through what was necessary and what was not in her experience. Since then I have talked to more people who have had similar experiences with this Vet and have given me recommendations for other local vets to try out.


Theater in the park - learning to lie down
A good friend and I had made plans to see a play in the park near by and I figured that Siesta is so sleepy and easy that I would just take her with me and she could snooze on the blanket while we watched. Apparently I was not the only one to think this was a good idea cause there were a lot of other dogs at the play. Needless to say Siesta was a lot more interested in meeting all the other dogs than taking a nap on the blanket. When the play started I tried to get her to lie down to no avail. Eventually she started whimpering with frustration cause I wouldn't let her roam through the audience in the middle of the play. I had to admit defeat and call Ty to come pick her up and take her home. Chalk it up to not really knowing my dog well enough yet.



New Coat from Needle Nose Apparel www.needlenoseapparel.com
So even though it was not nearly cold enough to warrant a coat, I couldn't resist buying a snuggly coat for Siesta from www.needlenoseapparel.com . We took all her measurements and emailed them to the terrific woman behind Needle Nose, Andrea Truax. She was great to work with and super fast. In fact the coat arrived 2 days after I mailed her a personal check for the coat. Here are a few cute picture of Siesta trying it on the day it arrived. Since then she has only worn it once when we had to go out in a cold rain.

A rainy first day

Siesta's first full day at home actually started with 2 car rides to the architecture school. One to drop Ty off to meet his studio professor, Leon Krier, and the second to pick him back up again. I can pretty much guarantee Seista was confused when she made the effort to come down the scary stairs, wait as I fumbled to get a sheet spread out over the back seat, and then sit quietly during the ride only to find herself back on the exact street she started. Not to mention, she was terribly concerned when Ty jumped out of the car at the intersection in front of his school. Not quite sure how well it's going to go when we both have to leave her on Monday to go to work. But as one of my soccer coaches used to say, "we'll jump off that bridge when we come to it."

While Ty did work at school in the middle of the day, we girls snoozed on the coach and watched TV. Siesta seemed to be very interested in all the dogs that passed by on the sidewalk below our front window. Luckily her head is just the right height to see out our windows. In between her voyeuristic episodes she snoozed away on her large fluffy bed.



Later in the evening when Ty was home we tried out leaving her alone for a short time to see if we could hear her cry from downstairs, but to our surprise she was happy to jump in her kennel and seemed to be fine with the scenario. She was happy to see us when we returned from our errand around the corner, but it made me feel better about the prospect of her having separation anxiety come Monday.



Our close friends, John Killar and Lynne Addison came over for dinner tonight to meet Seista. She was cordial and greeted them both with kisses and a gentle lean into their thighs. Everyone seems to be genuinely impressed with her beautiful markings and won over by her sweet disposition. She put on such a convincing show of relaxation during dinner that I became worried that Seista was dangerously lethargic and insisted that she wake up and interact with everyone.



Yes, I know I worry too much.

As it turns out she was just fine of course and while we watched a movie she went right back to snoozing on her bed in the middle of the room. She seems really happy to be here and we are so incredibly happy to have her too. Here is a picture of her snuggling while I blog.

Siesta' s first night at home

Wow. It's been a full day. So, at 5pm yesterday I gave up on hearing back from Lindsay while still at work and came home. I gave her a call and it turned out she was still having car trouble so I offered for Ty and I to come to her home and pick up Siesta. So when Ty finished his class at 6 or so we drove 30 minutes in the rain to Prospect, CT. After Lindsay welcomed us into her house we saw Siesta again and she gave us an enthusiastic greeting with kisses. After going over the paperwork and some last minutes advice from Lindsay she helped us get everything in the car, including a HUGE crate and Siesta herself. I really have to thank Lindsay for not only being a wonderfully generous person for caring for greyhounds in search of homes, but for being a truly sweet person that I am happy to have met. I am sure Siesta will miss her and I hope I can fill the void.

So off we drove, terribly excited and a little nervous. Siesta was a great car passenger even though she had to lie down on top of her collapsed monster crate with the rear seats down to fit.



When we got home we hauled everything upstairs (ourselves, Siesta, the crate, a bag of dog food and the adorable pink toy WAG sent her home with). Here is a picture of the crate - it takes up pretty much the entire dining room so I sincerely hope this is a short term need.



We were starved so we fed Siesta 1.5 cups of her food (as directed) and ourselves some spaghetti. Seista gobbled her dinner up in less than 60 seconds flat. About 20 minutes later, Seista started wimpering a bit and we of course concluded that she must be upset about the move or the new surroundings and tried to console her. Finally, it occurred to Ty that she probably needed to go out to go to the bathroom. Genius. So off they went on a nice evening walk which I heard was VERY productive. Needless to say she was much happier when she returned and fell asleep in her kennel at midnight and we didn't hear a peep from her till 8am. Not bad for her first night.

Here are some photos I took from her first night, but like most dogs she wouldn't pose for the camera very well. We'll have to work on that.

Awaiting Siesta's Arrival

I decided to write a blog about Siesta, our snoozing greyhound, for several reasons.
1. Siesta is our first dog so we are bound to make mistakes and learn great tricks for other dog lovers.
2. Siesta is a retired racing greyhound who is still learning about life off the track, so she is bound to make some adorable blunders herself.
3. I am a long way from home, friends, and family on the west coast so I thought this would be a way for them to meet our new dog and keep in touch with me.

So, here I am at work on a Friday afternoon waiting for a call from Lindsay, Siesta's foster mom, saying she is coming to drop Siesta off. As soon as I get the call, off I will race home - or rather I will walk a block in the rain to the shuttle stop and then nervously ride the bus around New Haven waiting to be dropped off at the end of my street. Once she arrives, the official adoption paper work has to be signed and then ... she's ours!

But let me back track a little and explain why we're adopting Siesta. Of course there are the obvious reasons someone adopts a dog, they love dogs, want companionship, an exercise partner, etc. Which are all true for us. Also, Ty works long hours in grad school so Siesta is going to be my couch buddy in the evening. To be truthful, this adoption has been a long time coming. I have sort of been obsessed with greyhounds since we moved to the east coast 4 years ago and started meeting people with greyhounds everywhere. Greyhounds all seemed to be so sweet, quiet, gentle, and completely adorable. On top of all that they have a rough start to life on the track and adopting a greyhound means giving them a life of leisure that all dogs should enjoy. So when we finally decided the time was right to adopt a dog, and a small dog was out of the question for Ty, a greyhound was the obvious choice.

So I submitted an application to We Adopt Greyhounds (WAG) here in Connecticut. That evening they responded to my application with a phone interview. It was nothing too grueling, but they still wanted to set up a in-home meeting for the following week. Lindsay was the foster mom they put me in touch with and she arranged for another foster mom and both of their foster dogs to visit us in our apartment. So I scrambled to get the place as dog-friendly as possible for their visit. Ty and I were incredibly excited. When Lindsay and Chris arrived with Celesta (now called Siesta) and Sooner (a male dog - 18 months old) they had to teach Sooner to climb the stairs cause he'd never seen stairs before since he was fresh off the track. As it turned out "Celesta" had been off the track for some time since she broke her rear right leg in a race. She had it reset by a canine surgical orthopedist in Boston and had fully recuperated in foster care. So she had a little more experience in a home than Sooner. The more we learned from the two foster moms about the dogs the more it became clear that "Celesta" was the right dog for us.

During a second home visit we introduced Siesta to our friends' puppy and 2 cats to test her "prey instincts." She seemed to pass those tests so we finalized our choice with Lindsay. For the past 2 weeks we were on a previously arranged vacation to California to visit family. That's where we decided that her racing name, "Celesta", didn't quite work for us and I thought that Siesta was a clever, better sounding name that she might still respond to. Greyhounds are ofter referred to as 40 mile and hour couch potatoes because they are big fans of napping. So the name seemed to make sense. Since we got back from vacation I have been running around buying doggy gear, treats, a bed, and toys.

So, all there is left to do now is wait for her to arrive...