The first dog my partner and I ever had was a greyhound that we named Milo – that’s him in the picture above. Please note the soulful, please-give-me-a-biscuit eyes. He was a “retired” racing greyhound – the retired part is highly qualified because although he trained for two years to race and he was very fast, he didn’t make the cut. He had virtually no prey drive so he didn’t really want to catch the bunny – he just wanted to run along with it for a while and then maybe sprint back to his trainers to see if they might like to pet him and you know, give him a good ear rub. (His official pedigree racing name was “AMF Air Ball” which explains a lot.)
The racing industry’s loss was definitely our gain however – once Milo left his kennel and came to live with us in an actual house, he quickly learned about stairs and sliding glass doors and slippery tile floors and then he settled in like a pro. He mastered napping on the couch with his chin supported by pillows. He adored his collection of stuffy toys, some of which he would squeak over and over and over as if he was performing some new kind of jazz fusion song – we called him the Charlie Parker of squeak toys. But there was nothing Milo loved more than his daily walks.
People in our neighbourhood were immediately drawn to him when we were out walking – greyhounds are really unusual looking dogs, lean and long-legged, like they are the product of some extreme bit of engineering. Often, he was the first greyhound they had ever seen so they would stop us and ask about him. Cars going by would sometimes slow down and the people inside would shout, “Excuse me…what kind of dog is that?”
He was gentle with little dogs and utterly delighted by cats. He had girlfriends and admirers (human and canine alike) all around the neighbourhoods where we walked, day in and day out, through sunshine, sleet and snow. Sometimes people joined us for our walks with their dogs, sometimes they invited us to sit on their porch. We got to know our neighbours because Milo introduced us.
Eventually another greyhound moved into our neighbourhood and our dogs greeted each other like long-lost brothers. This led to meeting more greys and their humans and eventually to a Saturday morning greyhound club. One morning, while watching our dogs run great circles on an empty soccer field, I mentioned to Kathy, (the human belonging to Cayman Kari, a gorgeous brindle greyhound) that I was writing a book.
“Wait – what?” she said. Turns out that not only is she a discerning reader, she’s a hilarious person whose emails always make me laugh out loud. She ended up line editing an early draft of The Kitchen Sink Sutra for me and gave me valuable feedback. Just one more introduction courtesy of our crazy happy hounds.
Our sweet boy Milo died very suddenly a few years ago and we miss him every day still. But yesterday, when I walked Gavin (who has the prey drive of a greyhound stuffed into the body of a lap dog) we were invited for coffee on the porch of some friends that we know because we met them walking Milo. And on the way home, we passed Splash the Portuguese Water Dog’s house, we saw Eddie the Spaniel and Louis the Shitzu at the park, we waved to Violet and Harvey and Teddy in their yards and we stopped to chat with Wes the West Highland Terrier’s humans who have recently put their house up for sale.
As Gavin and I trudged home yesterday, I thought again about how tiny our world would be without our dogs.
Good job, Milo.
P.
P.S. Godspeed, Kari.