Our Christmas Miracle

Those who have been following along this year, will remember we adopted a greyhound in March.  Many of the qualities we had been told about the breed are simply not turning out to be true in our (limited) experience.

Faith is NOT lacking in brain power.  She may not be as smart as Dudley (our lab mix) was, but she's no slouch.

Faith is NOT a couch potato, any more than Gunner is.

In fact she has been getting into quite a bit of mischief the past couple of months that has been getting me pretty worked up.  She IS food obsessed.  Even more so than our foodaholic Dudley, which I didn't think was possible.  We are now hiding anything remotely deemed edible -- in the microwave, in the oven, behind closed doors.  In the recent past she helped herself to candy (yes, including chocolate), cake, soup, and most delicious of all, compost.  Those are just the edible items.  I can't keep yarn anywhere she can reach.  And now the Christmas tree ornaments are getting chewed.

This used to be round

Another wood car wasn't remotely salvageable

I consulted with her foster (the greyhound rescue organization we went through places dogs off the track into short-term foster homes until adopted) and she (brilliantly) suggested putting Faith's muzzle on after catching her in the act.  That has now become the new operating procedure.

Anyway, the biggest transgression (although I can't really call it that) came about last Monday.  I was up first as usual and let the two dogs out at 6:00 a.m.  Gunner returned, but Faith remained out.  At 7:00 I awoke Rick and said we had to go out and look for her.  The dogs have about an acre of fenced woods surrounding the house in which to noodle around.  Looking for her in the dark was not going to be easy...

I was panicked to find she had gotten out of the fenced in area.

I took the car, driving down our dirt road, stopping every couple of minutes to call.  Rick took off on foot looking in yards and calling.  I drove down the way-too-close busy road, looking for a dead dog.  Finally I returned home.  Rick took up the road patrol.

About 8:00, little miss princess came to the back door, as they've been taught, to come in.

  

Let me just say, others who know greyhounds better than we, say they never come home.  They take off like the wind, end up far away from home, and lost.  Her return was a godsend.

Within minutes she was cuddled up to me on the couch.