Help us, help hounds, with your donations and purchases.
Next auction starts
Sept. 1, 9 pm, MT.
Our thanks to bidders and donors. Without you, hounds don't find forever homes.
Voting 8/18 - 9/1
Loved Hound
Your hound can be featured as a Loved Hound, too. Just bid in Greyhound Gang's on-line auction (during the first two weeks of every month) for your chance to be spotlighted. Once you've won, I'll contact you to get your story. You'll email me pictures, and text, and the following month, this is where you and your hound will be. Loved Hound. Our wish - love for them all.
Maya - written by Nancy Naslund
I saw her picture. I read her story. I fell in love. Maya (R’s Katnip), a 9 year old, dark brindle girl, who had raced and then lost two homes, through no fault of her own, entered ours.
Those first days, the veiled sparkle in her eyes hinted at the joy she had within. But she was hesitant to believe she may have found a home that would love her forever.
It didn’t take long though for our six children to get her to open up, as t
heir energy matched hers. Very quickly we were spelling - w-a-l-k-s or going to the b-e-a-c-h, as her happy dance would drum the floor and shake the walls. Her joy was palpable and infectious, as her trademark happy dance was on display for so many things – eating food, doing potty, seeing horses – she loved it all and she wasn’t afraid to show it.
Our guinea pigs, in particular, enthralled her. We'd hear her whining, knowing she was having a stare-down with them. We’d quietly enter the room, and she would quickly lie down, pretending to be not the least bit interested in them. It never failed to crack us up.
Matching Maya’s energetic side, was a gentle, gracious heart and a loving spirit. I could ‘feel’ her and know she needed something, no matter where in the house she was. My husband said he’d never known a dog like Maya - one who captivated so many hearts; and was loved so dearly even by folks that weren't dog people - like my parents. On my parents' table with pictures of cherished family members, sits Maya's picture. She is the only four-legged animal given that honor.
We selfishly love to love. In addition to our six, two-legged children, we had 5 dogs, 5 cats, 2 guinea pigs and 4 cockatiels when Maya joined us. She had a myriad of medical issues – seizures, pemphigus (SLO), irritable bowel syndrome - but nothing dampened her joy of life, and our joy of her. Maya became the gracious hostess for all the foster greyhounds visiting our home. She taught them everything, and only asked one thing of them. That they NOT sleep in her bed. If she would find one sleeping on her bed beside me at night, she was inconsolable. Her devastated eyes begged me to take care of the egregious mistake that had been made, so she could be in her rightful place. Next to me.
We couldn’t give her enough love. Sadly we were only able to physically love her shy of two years, as osteosarcoma claimed her.
That last night I stayed awake with her, memorizing every last beautiful gray bit of her fur, the sound of her breathing, the gaze of her eyes. Come morning, we went outside and drank in the waking dawn together. Maya intently looked around as if she knew it was her last. She leaned against me while the robins sang and for a moment there was peace.
To the very end she loved her food, walking in the yard, having tummy rubs, tossing her stuffies in the air, but most of all she loved us. I long to touch the soft part on her neck, to rub her belly, to kiss the top of her head. Most of all to look into her eyes, so wise and silly and loving. Sweet Maya, do your happy dance, and know that we will love you always.
Grace, Ella, Forrest, Michael, Freya, Bear, John, Nancy, and all the other critters in our family