SEASON'S GREETINGS!

by: Linda Brown

Well, it's been several months since leaving California for the beautiful mountains of Colorado, and I thought it would be good to let everyone know how things are going.

Moving here has been very exciting for me, as well as my greyhounds and horses. We arrived here in May and experienced real summer weather; thunderstorms, rain,
lightening and MUD. Luckily, the storms are short in duration and the ground dries fairly quickly. I'm glad we brought some of our carpet strips with us from the Acton ranch - it sure helps with the muddy paws. Otherwise, the summers are mild, highest temp was 87 degrees, with a beautiful mountain breeze to make it a perfect summer. The wildlife is abundant and healthy - my hounds love to bark at the deer and elk that travel by our fence line. The wildlife just look at them and continue on to the watering hole just across the road from our new ranch.

In late September, autumn kicked in. The colors were brilliant and it was fascinating watching the birds congregate for migration. The bears got really active, looking for those final meals before hibernating, but gave the dogs not a second look.

October brought in our first snow - it was so gorgeous. It melted in two days, but while it was here, the dogs loved it... the horses rolled in it... and I had a happy 4-legged household. Then came November! Do we have snow out here!! But it wasn't until late November that the actual cold set in for two days. The dogs did NOT care for the cold and I heard the horses saying to each other, "I don't think we're in California anymore!" As Colorado would have it - it only lasted two days and now our winter days are up into the 40 degree mark again and all is good. The snow is again melting - until the next flakes come.

Colorado is not without it challenges. The easy ones are driving in mud with the consistency of snot, driving in snow, wiping muddy paws and putting in hose spigots that don't freeze in the winter. What the real challenges are; picking up dog and horse poop in buffalo grass. Buffalo grass is the natural ground cover out here; the blades are similar to curly fries. The blades mock you and seem to hang on to each dropping like a treasure. The second challenge is picking up dog and horse poop after it has frozen in the snow. There have been mornings I needed a jackhammer to get it. Despite all that, we love it out here. The dogs love the smells, and listen intently as the elk bray or the hawks and eagles screech while hunting. The air is so fresh and clean, my dogs no longer wheeze during the summer. Our rescue rooms are on hold as winter has put a halt to construction, but 'when spring comes, it won't take long to finish and I will be able to bring in new 'kids' to love and care for. Please continue to check out our website - www.Retired Racers.com - and click on the Announcement button. I try to update that every one to two months and we have pictures of the construction progress, too

I get calls from some of my Retired Racers family each week and I sure do love that. Some of you keep in touch via e-mail, too. As much as I love it here, I do miss my greyhound family and friends I left in California... So please keep in touch. Larry continues to commute every two weeks between here and CA, and it seems to get harder for him to leave the beauty of this area each time. But money matters right now, so he does what needs to be done. He did get his Colorado plumbing license and has already had several jobs here in town.

I will continue to keep you updated through the Needle Nose Notes, and have to give them a big 'thank you' for being there for me when I can't. They have been a tremendous asset for Retired Racers' transition to Colorado.

May you all have a safe and wonderful Holiday Season!!

END OF A DECADE!

It's hard to believe that the Needle Nose Crew has now completed its first full decade. What a wild, and for the most part, terrific ride it has been. . We're not going to write a complete breakdown of everything we have accomplished over the past ten years, thank goodness. However, as is our tradition, we are going to give everyone a pat on the back for another wonderful year of participating in greyhound promotion. Although we had slightly fewer days of activities than we had in 2003, we were nevertheless extremely busy with our normal events. In addition we began to develop new events that broadened the numbers and backgrounds of the potential adopters we met.

We had eighteen days spent at local pet stores. For those days, we thank the Petcos and Petsmarts in Montebello, Aliso Viejo, Irvine and Costa Mesa. We spent nine days at the Orange County Fairgrounds for the seasonal Home Shows. Thanks go out to the NEC organization which always makes us feel welcome. Ten days were dedicated to business centers and facilities around the Orange County area. Our appreciation goes out to the Irvine Spectrum, San Clemente Wal-Mart and Newport Beach Fashion Island. Not only were we welcomed by businesses around our area but individual communities allowed us to participate in their special events which are always busy days for our volunteers. Twelve days were spent with these communities and we sincerely thank the ARF Foundation of Dana Point, the Woodbridge Association of Irvine, the Board of Realtors of Laguna Beach, and the cities of Chino Hills, Long Beach, Brea and Placentia. All of these marvelous groups and communities were kind enough to include the NNC in their annual events, each of which pull in hundreds of local citizens.

Of course, our year included three days at the WWSPA America's Family Pet Expo held each spring at the Orange County Fairgrounds. We thank the city of Costa Mesa for such -a wonderful venue, and the WWSPA for such a terrific event serving all pet lovers throughout the Southland.

We had fun supporting the cast members at the Cast Theatre in Los Angeles during the run of their extremely well done Cynics play. Our only wish would be that everyone involved in greyhound volunteer work could have had a chance to see such a thought- provoking program.

Last but not least, we rounded out our tenth year in direct support of four of our local adoptions organizations. We assisted with nine days of greyhound bubble bath events at Hemopet in Garden Grove. We also attended, enjoyed and helped with the reunion picnics of Greyhound Connection in Oceanside and Southern California Greyhound Adoption League in Irvine. All the events were fun with lots of greys, their human companions, and potential adopters LOST GREY? present and enjoying wonderful days with greys. With great sadness we said good-bye.

LOST GREY?

Recently I visited the Humane Society of the United States web site at www.hsus.org. The site is very well done, with tons of information and articles on everything to do with animals.

While browsing the site, I came across an article on Finding a Lost Pet, which was very ironic since we had a report of a found greyhound just the day before. The person calling did not leave a clear message, did not leave a location, or even what color or gender the grey was! And then to top it off, it was a business number with no one there until the next day. At 7:30 the next morning, having figured out the general area by telephone exchange, we started calling everyone we knew within that area to make sure their greys were home and safe. When we finally reached the people who found the dog, we were told, "oh, the owner came by and picked up the dog the day before." That's wonderful news - but very scary and frustrating for us!

Your greyhound has a better chance of being returned speedily if he or she always wears a collar and an ID tag with your name, address, and phone number. Also, keep an additional tag on your greyhound with the telephone number of your adoption group. Call your adoption group immediately if your greyhound gets out. Each group keeps records of ear tattoos, and can very quickly match up a found greyhound with his or her lost human!

	Michelle Roache for her loss of Zen
	Bruce and Susan Robb for their loss of Destiny and the wonderful Funny Face
	Alison Diamond for her loss of Lucky
	Howard & Norma Schlesinger for their loss of the marvelous Devon
	Katie Fisher for her loss of the very stoic Vinnie
	Laura Hawkins for her too early loss of Jet
	Richard & Susan Newcomer for their loss of the lovely Kailey

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