Greyhound Public Relations

Saturday morning found us getting up bright and early to go and help with the first of two volunteer projects that we had for the day.  Both of them involved the dogs and it made for a busy day for us and them. 

Our first stop was at the Wellness Fair for the therapy dog group that we volunteer with.  It got interesting before we even got inside.  Right away, the girls knew there was something interesting up ahead.

Not only was there something interesting to see, there were already people waiting to ask us questions about the dogs.  There were some kids outside who were fascinated with Bunny and Blueberry.  Not to mention some adults.  Mr. Taleteller was kind enough to take Blueberry and say that he needed to get her inside, leaving Bunny and me to fend for ourselves.

Inside there were lots of booths with all kinds of different health related services and products.  The Paw to Paw booth is always busy.  We met lots of our therapy dog friends and even a therapy cat showed up.  Flat Nigel also made an appearance, but I'm not sure what kind of therapy he'd do if he came to the nursing home with us.

I always feel a little guilty when we go to this annual event.  People are always crazy about the greyhounds and ask us a lot of questions.  The crowd the forms around them is like people meeting rock stars at times.  Sometimes I feel like we're taking away from the attention the group needs to get for volunteers to go to the nursing homes.  We get asked all the time when we're out with the girls about where people can adopt greyhounds, and I'm happy to help greyhounds get homes.  I just don't want to overshadow the reason we're there.

After we'd spent some time at the Wellness Fair it was time to pack up and move on.  We grabbed a quick lunch and drove home to drop Blueberry off.  Then we headed to the 4H office to help with our introduction to the new kids who are signing up for dog obedience, which Mr. Taleteller and I help volunteer with.  Bunny has been through obedience and usually does pretty well with it.  Our friend has a German Shepard she's done a lot of obedience with as well, but he's getting older and he was at the Wellness Fair with us in the morning, too. 

Of course, when we arrived, Bunny looked at the long flight of stairs that led up to the room where we were meeting and put on the brakes.  No way was she climbing those stairs.  So, we went to plan B.  That was taking the elevator.  I should mention that this elevator makes the OJ Simpson car chase look like the Indy 500.  I began to fear that by the time we got to the top that the meeting would be over, but we made it.

Bunny did pretty well considering that she'd been the center of a mob scene for several hours in the morning and hasn't practiced her obedience much through the winter.  She did charm the crowd yet again, which I suspect is the most important part of going in her eyes.  I saw that she tried to teach Flat Nigel a thing or two, but he wasn't paying attention.  We brought home one very tired, but happy, puppy.