August 04, 2005
B’mer and Joe
A few years ago, B’mer f/k/a It’s a Hubba Bubba appeared as the featured greyhound in an edition of the Greyhound Companions of New Mexico’s newsletter. We learned that since B’mer’s retirement from the track, and through no fault of her own, she had been placed in three different homes in nearly as many years. She was nine years old and needed somewhere to grow old in peace. Darcy and I couldn't’t stand it, so we called Judy Paulson, a representative for Greyhound Companions of New Mexico (http://www.gcnm.org) and a wonderful human being to boot. She’d helped us adopt our two big boys, Devon and Dante, and she was delighted to learn that we wanted to give them an older sister. (B’mer was nine years old at the time.) Judy arranged for us to visit B’mer at her foster home that evening. She turned out to be as advertised, a sweet, darling red head with soulful eyes but who always had a smile on her face. She had a tuft of hair standing straight up on the back of her neck, so we called her our Rhodesian Ridgeback greyhound. A few months ago my brother came for an extended visit, and he and B’mer became fast friends. He nicknamed her “Maime” because of her resemblance to Maime Eisnehower. All she lacked was a pillbox hat. Last April, at thirteen, B’mer finally succumbed to complications resulting from a degenerative spinal condition.
After our first greyhound Devon died (see July 2004 entry), we declared, “no more greyhounds.” We planned to attrition back to a family comprised of humans and cats. However, Dante, our remaining greyhound, was devastated by B’mer’s absence from his life. He hated being the only dog. In addition, like B’mer, he had become extremely attached to my brother who was slated to move on to LA in mid-July. And then, on July 9, 2005, Darcy’s birthday, Judy Paulson called to say she had just retrieved a boy greyhound from the track who was white with brindle coloring and had “funny ears.” He was only a year and a half old and hadn’t cut it as a racer because all he wanted to do at the track was play. We had spent the week mourning our beloved Devon, the brindle greyhound with backwards ears, who had passed on July 5, 2004. (He would have been 10 on July 10 this year.) It seemed like fate, if one ascribes to that sort of thing, so we arranged for Judy to bring Joe over. We loved him. Dante loved him. He learned quickly that the cats don’t want to play. The balance has been restored.
Joe & Dante