New Way to Help FFGR, Inc.!

We have a new way for you to help our organization! We met Bob and Arline at Greyhounds Rock recently. They are vendors and we spent the weekend with them vending next to one another. We all had a good time!

Bob and Arline own Kreative K-9 Fashions. Their merchandise is GREYT! They are partnering with our group and are offering to donate 10% of every on line sale they make to us! They also offer one day specials that save you lots of money on purchases! We will be announcing those as they make the offers.

Just click on the title of this post to go to their site. We hope to see Bob and Arline again in the spring at Greyhounds in Gettysburg. We thank them for supporting our group!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We would like to wish all of our Fast Friends Greyhound Rescue, Inc. family a wonderful and peaceful Thanksgiving! When we count our blessings, we are grateful beyond words for the wonderful people who are a part of our family. We are especially grateful this year for the exceptional volunteers who have made all the difference in how our group works. Your continued support and hours spent working on behalf of the hounds has made us what we are. We feel that 2011 has been our banner year, what we have worked for all along. Thanks to everyone who made this possible.

Thanks to all of those adopters who understand the commitment to their dogs and for loving and caring for them. You give us the strength and desire to keep going.

Enjoy your day!

Holiday Reminder - Open Doors!

Now that the holidays are upon us, we think it's a good opportunity to call attention to the fact that this is the time of year when we experience the most calls about loose dogs. With a little planning and thinking ahead, you can enjoy that turkey and spend time with your family and not have to take time out of your holidays to look for a lost dog. Make sure all doors are closed properly when guests come to your home. Also, it's important to remind guests to be aware of the fact that a greyhound lives in the house. It seems as though every holiday we get calls about dogs escaping out of doors when they have accidentally been left open or they get through open doors when guests arrive and take off their coats at the door. It only takes a small opening in a door for a greyhound to get through because of their thin bodies.

Start to plan now for what you will do to keep your holidays happy and your hound safe. When we had our four greyhounds years ago, we worked with them all and trained them to "wait" at the door until we said "let's go." Everyone understood the commands and listened well. At the time we didn't have a fenced in yard so we couldn't afford to have our dogs get loose where we live in a rural area and on the side of a mountian. But now that we have so many dogs here, that kind of training is hard to do and many of the dogs are not here long enough to train. We do practice the "wait" command at the door before it's opened so we cut down on the chaos involved with a lot of dogs running out the door at the same time. We also back that up with the word "easy". No one goes outside until everyone is settled down and there is no bouncing around or whining.

Start now to think of what you can do to prevent your hound from accidentally getting out of a door. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Use a baby gate at the door and keep it propped up until you have your hound(s) secure. Then you can take the gate down, let guests in and then put the gate back in place. This will also work if you have a porch or deck that guests access to get to your front door. Place a gate across the porch/deck opening so that if your hound does get out of the door, he/she can only go so far.

2. Keep a leash next to the door and when guests arrive, leash your hound. This gets hard to do if you have lots of guests and lots of hounds!

3. Put an extra latch on your door so that you will have to go through more work to get a door open. This is a good reminder that you have to do something with your hound!

4. Make a sign for your door that warns guests that you have a greyhound inside the house and to be very careful when opening the door. Keep the door locked so that you have to answer it and guests can't walk in on their own.

4. To be perfectly safe, crate or baby gate your hound in another room while guests are arriving. Some people will even kennel their dog during large family gatherings; although not possible for some, it does guarantee that the greyhound will be safe.

5. Review the Lost Dog link we have posted on the Greytlinks page of our web site. You can print one Lost Dog flyer with your hound's photo and your phone number. Keep it handy and hope you will never have to use it. Keep all important phone numbers handy as well in case your hound escapes. It will get you help that much faster having the important information out in case you need it.

We hope that none of our hounds get out the door this holiday period; we hope that everyone will have a safe and happy holiday season and not have to feel the panic of searching for a beloved hound that escaped out of a door.
.

November is Adopt A Senior Pet Month!

November Is Adopt-A-Senior-Pet Month

Fast Friends Greyhound Rescue, Inc. and Petfinder.com are celebrating November as Adopt-A-Senior-Pet Month.

"Think of a pet that is already trained and doesn't chew or scratch everything in sight -- a pet who will love you unconditionally," said Kim Saunders, Petfinder.com's Vice President of Shelter Outreach and Public Relations. "That's what you get when you adopt a senior pet."

Some people worry that a senior pet comes with problems, but according to Hazel Blumberg-McKee of Tallahassee, FL, there are no disadvantages. "In most cases they've had a home and they want one again." She adopted eight-and-a-half-year old Sadie, and has never regretted it. "An older animal is easier to deal with. And Sadie is still playful. She plays fetch and gallops all over the place."

At animal shelters and rescue groups everywhere, there are loving, healthy senior pets like Sadie, looking for that one special home to cherish them for the rest of their life, and they don't ask for much: just a warm place to sleep, good meals and plenty of love.

During Adopt-A-Senior-Pet Month, take the opportunity to get acquainted with the older pets available at FFGR, Inc. During the month of November, for any senior that is adopted to a qualified adopter, our organization will donate $175 to the Morris Animal Foundation (for cancer research) in that pet's honor.

Please check out the seniors on Craiger's List that are waiting for their forever homes! Just click on the title of this post to go to Craiger's List.

Rainbow Bridge - R and A Yellow (Murray)

We are so sorry to report that our FFGR, Inc. family has lost yet another greyhound. We got notice from Marilyn and Ned Wright that their greyhound Murray lost his battle with lymphoma in July. He was nine years old. He was diagnosed with lymphoma back in March and at that time Marilyn contacted us to tell us about the diagnosis. There was little they could do at the time except treat the pain and give him the best life for the time he had left. That time came in July. Marilyn and Ned adopted Murray in September 2006. At that time they had another greyhound named Bailey. They told us that they also lost Bailey in July.

We often ran into Ned and Marilyn on our travels around Boonsboro and Middletown. They live in Middletown, a short drive from us. They always talked about how much they loved their hounds. It is always difficult to face the loss of a beloved hound, let alone two within a short period of time. But we know that Ned and Marilyn loved their greyhounds and they both had a wonderful and loving home.

Rest in sweet peace Murray (and Bailey).