Ken’s first exposure to greyhounds was going to the Thursday night races at Gulf Greyhound Park with his friends. It wasn’t until later that he adopted his first retired racer. My first exposure to greyhounds was on the internet when I was researching a breed for my first pet. It wasn’t until after I’d adopted my first greyhound that I ever visited a track to see greyhound racing for myself.

Though our introduction to the sport of greyhound racing was at different times, different tracks and under different circumstances there is one thing we shared: our love of the sport was immediate. It never really occured to me that I would ever actually own a race dog. And if it weren’t for Ken vocalizing his desire to be a part of the sport, I’m not sure I ever would have pursued buying a puppy. We talked about doing it for years…but when it came down to writing out that check to buy the puppy, I just always found  reason not to do it.

Finally, there was a breeding we liked at a time we had some disposable income to purchase the puppy. We went through Team Greyhound, not only because Heather and Kevin are good friends of ours, but (most importantly) because we have worked with them on the adoption side of things for  years and we both believe they are the ‘good eggs’ in the sport. They have a deep commitment to the welfare of the dogs that race in their program and an enthusiasm for the sport that is infectious.

The Team Greyhound program is great for first time owners. I don’t have to worry about finding a farm or a trainer or a track for our dog to run at. I don’t have to worry about coordinating haulers to move my dog from here to there. I just send a monthly board check to Team Greyhound and they take care of the rest. For our first pup, we decided to go half-interest so we co-own the pup with Kevin Fish.

We purchased a pup from the PA’s Shawneelass x Maryville Rumble* litter. PA’s Shawneelass was an unproven bitch at the time, but her early litters have produced some really nice racers, so we are hopefully her genes are strong in our litter as well!

Here’s a picture of our dog’s litter. Her racing name is still to be determined, but her call name is Bunny. She’s the red puppy looking away down at the ground…

Keep an eye here on greyhoundfreaks.com as we track Bunny’s <hopefully sucessful> racing career at Southland Greyhound Park – her racing begins in Spring 2009!

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