WHISKY'S BLOG ENTRY - STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN RETIRED LIFE!
16 November 2007.
Hello everyone, my name is Whisky and I am nearly 8 years old. I am a very handsome (even if I do say so myself) retired greyhound who used to race, and I thought I would write a bit to tell you about my life in retirement. I have also sent some pictures of me so that you can clearly see how handsome I am.
I have lived with two humans, Katy and Mark, since May 2006. My life is pretty good. I have these humans wrapped around my finger - I am quite fond of them, even though they are a bit dim sometimes. I have them well trained - I get fed and walked twice a day, and they play with me in the garden when I want. Occasionally I might let them one of them sits on the couch with me (if I'm not fully stretched out taking a nap). If I want something, all I need to do is whine at them a bit and they usually respond to my demands. My life in retirement is pretty lazy - the way I like it!
I am pretty happy with my life overall, but I thought that I would warn some other greyhounds that are coming into retirement - my humans have some pretty odd habits - and there is one thing that I really can't work out. I will try to explain it you as best I can, it's pretty strange!
A few times now, Mark and Katy have packed lots of things up in our car (like food, pillows, clothes etc.), got me in the car, and we've driven to different places, usually around 3 hours away, where there are hardly any houses and lots of open space. They do a very strange thing. They build a weird dome-shaped human sized kennel, made out of fabric. Strange bendy poles hold this structure up. A couple of times we have been to a place where there were more of these strange human kennels, (I think I may have heard the word tent) and also some small temporary box-shaped houses.
My humans then proceed to set up a table, chairs and other stuff outside the dome kennel, and they sit around outdoors, amongst flies, mosquitos, insects etc - it's very weird. We might do other things, like go for walks. They make food on a funny little stove. At night, we all sleep in this dome kennel!! It's a bit of squash, I can tell you that. After a couple of days of this sitting around outside, amongst the flies, insects and ants, we go home!! I can't understand it, they have a perfectly good house, it's near plenty of parks, and it has decent cooking and bathroom facilities, a bed, air conditioning, a heater, all mod cons - why on earth do they decide to go and live in a tiny kennel and put up with insects, dirt, bad weather etc. ??
They don't seem to understand that I am an inside, not an outside dog. I don't like to get my paws dirty, and when we go away on these trips, I try to spend all my time sitting inside the dome kennel on the blankets, rather than sitting outside on the ground (yes, they expect me to sit on the ground!) If they get me out of the dome kennel, then I will ask to sit in the car. However, one of our trips was okay, because at the place we went to, there were lots of wild rabbits!! I really wanted to chase them, but my humans wouldn't even let me off the lead - spoilsports.
Anyway, that's it for now, hope I've given you some idea the interesting things that happen in the life of a retired greyhound.
Whisky