From City Dog to Country Dog

Ziti is our first greyhound foster and arrived on a Saturday afternoon two weeks ago from his previous owner. He immediately dashed into the house and began sniffing about at all the new stuff. As all of his old stuff was brought in, he got even happier. There were his favorite toys! He immediately grabbed a sock monkey and took it around the house with him.

After a fond farewell, Jacob and I decided the best way to introduce Ziti to his new home was to first go on a long neighborhood walk. It wasn’t long into the walk before Ziti was happily loping alongside either of us as we held the leash. A quick, light distraction was all that was needed to help him stay on course.

Overall, Ziti came to us happy, healthy, and with a lot of energy to spare. The first night, as every book and fosterer will tell you, was the worst. I don’t think he slept a wink, because neither did we with all the whining and fussing! All day Saturday he would whine in his crate and a bit on Sunday too. It didn’t matter if we were here or not. Yesterday and today, he won’t whine in his crate when we are around and when I come home and am listening at the door, he’s quiet now too. We’re so happy to hear him relaxed and calm when we’re not around.

Never have I met a dog happier to see his leash than Ziti. He absolutely cannot contain his joy and his tail wags non-stop because he knows when we’ve got that leash in hand, he’s getting to do his favorite activity - walking!

While Ziti never made the top tier of racing (Class AA), he did win in Class B races and raced in Class A. He ran nearly 190 races and won almost 30 of those. You can view his pedigree and stats for details. He had the most wins of his litter. This sort of career meant that he was kept at the track longer and last raced in December 2006. In a way, his success meant that he had a better chance of living longer than less successful dogs, but a life of racing is a hard life and he rightly deserves to retire.

If you are interested in learning more about Ziti, you can visit Greyhound Welfare to learn about which open houses we are attending in the near future or learn how you can foster or adopt a greyhound.

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