He who shall be named …
January 22nd 2012 02:44
Ssshh. If you are going to read this, please don’t tell anyone what I am about to reveal about our new greyhound, Clint.
You see, Clint had a trainer who was a bit sad to see him go off to the Greyhound Adoption Program. We know because when we got Clint from GAP, there amongst the paperwork was the trainer’s name and phone number, along with a note which said the trainer would be “delighted” if the new owner rang for a chat about the dog.
So we did, and the owner told us that he had trained both Clint and his brother, and they were great dogs and he would love to have kept both of them in retirement but he already had six greyhounds as pets.
This bloke needs to be careful, we thought, or he will start giving greyhound trainers a good name.
Clint also had an adoptive homestay for a few weeks, part of the process for all greyhounds going through the adoption program and aimed at transitioning them from the life of an elite athlete to life as a couch potato.
It’s possibly the greatest natural conundrum in the known universe: how can one dog breed be so perfectly adapted to both lifestyles.
Anyway, we met the couple who acted as Clint’s adoptive carers on behalf of GAP, and you could tell they were pretty sad to be saying goodbye. Our good friend Jennie, who has done the adoption thing with about a trillion greyhounds, says the handover day is a happy one because she can drive away knowing she has played a key role in the future happiness of a dog and its new family.
But Jennie’s special. We think less experienced people who love animals enough to do this important work for GAP generally have a tug of regret when the moment comes to say goodbye.
For the couple who had taken care of Clint, you could see it was a major tug, not least because Clint was their first adoptive greyhound. We hope it’s not their last. GAP needs people like them.
And so Clint came to live with us, immediately creating problems for two reasons.
One is that he’s a slightly undersized greyhound who is all black except for a bit of white on his chest. This is a problem because our other greyhound, Daisy, is slightly undersized and all black except for a bit of white on her chest.
After studying the pair under a microscope for a week, we discovered Clint has three white feet and one black, while Daisy has three black feet and one white. Hooray! Now, whenever a dog comes up to say hello, all we have to do is drop to our knees and peer closely at their paws to decide which it is.
Anyway, I’m digressing, trying to delay the difficult part of this post, and the reason I must ask none of you, this blog’s readers, to tell Clint’s former trainer or his adoptive carers what we have done.
What we have done is this: we have changed his name. Clint, the name which rolled so easily off the tongue of trainer and carer, a word which they casually and effortlessly infused with loving affection, didn’t appeal to us.
Neither Little Boss nor I, delving deep into our hearts and hearing, as one does, the mind’s eye looking forward to a long future of calling out “Clint! Dinner!” and “Clint! Stop barking at possums at 3am”, felt comfortable.
So we talked about it, in whispers in case anyone heard, and decided to change his name to Larry.
Allow me, therefore, to introduce Zoomies readers to our new greyhound, Larry. But please don’t tell the kind trainer or the lovely adoptive couple we changed his name. To them, let him always be Clint.
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