And who, you may ask, is this?
Well, may I present the Formerly-Named “Hulk”. (We’re working on his new name. Stay tuned.)
It’s funny how when you lose a dog, people wait a respectable amount of time before asking, “Hey, do you think you might get another?” We held off a bit because we didn’t want memories of Cane to color our expectations of and relationship with any new dog; plus, we figured that Carla had her own process to get through. Cane’s passing was a deeply difficult time, and we didn’t want to fall into any trap of failing to honor him properly by charging full speed into a “replacement”.
But, at the same time…eventually you just have to get back on the bicycle, you know? So eventually, earlier this year, The Wife reached out to the local greyhound adoption group. We were on the wait list for a while, but eventually a few dogs started trickling back into the area. It’s a lot harder now to adopt greyhounds, now that greyhound racing is down to just five states where it’s a thing. (They are Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, and of course, Texas.) We brought one in as a foster…and it turned out that he was not going to be cat-safe. He was around for all of one weekend, and then we had to move him on. Other than that, he was a really nice dog and I’m sure he landed in a perfect home someplace.
A few more weeks went by, and another opportunity to foster came up: a full-brindle boy, just over two years old, who had a mediocre racing history and was now fully retired. His full racing handle was “V.J. Hulked Out”, with a call-name of “Hulk”; as we were fostering him, we were required to call him by that name. So we’ve talked about what to make his actual name once the adoption goes all the way through. I pushed, a little, for Vijay; those first initials made me get all geeky, because one of my favorite supporting characters in any James Bond movie is a guy named Vijay in the India sequences in Octopussy. My family didn’t warm to “Vijay”, and I didn’t feel strongly enough to push hard for it. You have to pick your battles, and “Vijay” was not a battle I wanted to fight. That would have been cool, though!
Since we were actually fostering “Hulk” for the last month or so, there were certain rules the adoption group required us to follow, all of which seem perfectly reasonable. The big one was that we weren’t to post anything about him on social media, until his adoption became official. Well, earlier today we filled out the paperwork and made a nice donation to the group, so now he’s properly official. He’s actually a member of the family now! Huzzah!
Oh, and how is Carla liking having a brother again, albeit this time a younger brother? Well, so far, so good. She’s teaching “Hulk” how to play, how to bug us for treats, how to pace about to let us know he needs to go outside…she’s teaching him to dog, basically. He’s got a good teacher.
Oh, that photo up top? Good picture, innit? I took that just this afternoon! After a few weeks with us he finally felt comfortable enough in the back yard and with us to start running, and he’s really fast–much faster than Cane was, which ought to be interesting if/when I take him to the big fenced dog run at Knox Farm. Unfortunately for him we had to get him neutered the week before last, and part of his healing regimen was no running for 10 to 14 days. Today was Day Eleven and he has shown zero ill effects or discomfort following the procedure, so today we let him have a run. And who just happened to be there with his camera, just waiting for a good opportunity to practice photography in shutter-priority?
More photos to come, obviously. As I write this the Flickr app on my phone is being picky about uploading, so some of the shots that I really want to share will have to wait. Soon, though! You haven’t heard the last of this guy, not by a longshot.
Yay! Congrats on the new dog, whatever his name turns out to be