Rosie, Sharon and Lance

By Fatima |

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Today's feature story: Rosie (Memphis Angel), Sharon and Lance.
Sharon and Lance emigrated from the UK 1.5 years ago, and recently, Rosie joined their family...

Sharon says:
After having sighthounds of some kind, for most of our lives to date (with some border collie thrown in along the way), and leaving our two beautiful lurchers, Tigger and Polly (greyhound/ saluki crosses) with our friends back in the UK, when we emigrated to NZ last year, it was an obvious decision for us to adopt a greyhound from GAP.

We had been without a dog for almost 18 months, when Lance suggested it was time for us to add to the family, and apparently it would be someone for Reuben (our 3 year old son) to play with, and thankfully didn’t involve me giving birth again. Lance had scoured the NZ newspapers/ internet looking for a lurcher, only to find out a sighthound-sighthound cross didn’t really exist in NZ, and neither of us were keen on taking on ‘pig dog’ with a 3 year old around the house.

Ironically when we re-homed our first dog, Tigger from Battersea Dogs Home ( he was 5 months old), we had considered a greyhound, as according to Battersea the breed would be an ideal companion for a working couple. However with the option of a puppy or 6 year old ex racer, on that occasion the puppy won the day. Later though after he had ate my architecture books, disconnected the telephone line twice, and upended our plants, maybe the greyhound would have been the better choice.

So our relationship with GAP began, our first meeting with Louie (and Fatima of course) sealed the deal, that a retired greyhound was definitely the right choice for us. Even though Louie was as tall as Reuben, he wasn’t scared at all by this gentle giant strolling around our house.

Some months later on a rainy Sunday morning, we first met Rosie. She was smaller than we had expected, but most definitely perfect for us (a bit shorter than Reuben). Almost 2 months on, she is a delight to have around the place, and is starting to show her true character more and more each day. She is playful, loving and a complete thief, especially when it comes to 3 year old’s toys, much more interesting than the dog toys bought especially for her! She likes to help out around the place, good at clearing up after me, not so good at not eating the hedge clippings/ compost during one of my gardening bursts! Out and about she is the most friendly dog around, and tends to just wag her tail at everything (even the local cats!), on the beach though she changes into the racer she was trained as, and her particular favourite is kite surfers, and the odd seagull if they don’t move quick enough.

Adopting a greyhound was a great choice for us all, we’ve joined a community of like-minded people, Reuben has a self confessed new best friend, and Lance has his soul mate for those strolls along the beach in all weathers. And for me, I have another girl around the place, so the odds are now even!!