Saturday, October 4, 2008

more life with the hounds... more Gus

I really don't have anything in particular to write about, other than wishing that I could commit to writing something regularly, even if it was about nothing.... We still have Gus. On the 20th, he weighed in at 72 pounds! We just finished a round of de-wormer today. Nothing major. He is doing well. He is very stubborn sometimes. Loves attention of all kinds and follows whoever comes to the house and leans on them. He is very sweet. Tomorrow we will have had him 6 weeks. He is a greyt dog. This is where the questions really start to come in about, "Why don't you keep him?" "How can you let him go, he is so great!?" And so on. We get this with every foster. Seems to be more with Gus since we have had him so long. He is a fine greyhound. He does well with our hounds and they don't mind him. I love him to pieces and treat him like my own, but he isn't. I don't feel compelled to keep him, I mean there are times, but generally, I don't feel like it's right. It's one of those, I wouldn't mind if he stayed, but it's cool if he goes too. We have had a foster that we were so glad it left. Others, we have liked a lot, but didn't go well with our hounds... the situation is different with every hound. Gus is special. He has his sad story, but that does not compell me to feel any different with him as it does/might some people. In the end, he is just like any other greyhound. He really is. He is just your average goofy boy greyhound. At this point, he looks like a hound that just left the track not long ago. You would never know what he has been through. You know when the hound is right. Most people don't really get to "pick" so to speak as we have. We adopted Berry White and Anna in "love-at-first-sight" moments and Dax was only from a picture and a description. I knew when I saw him that he was different and would take work. He was so shy, and still retains some of that. BUT he is my boy. My boy. Gus is not my boy. And I know that every dog you have isn't. I will let him go. I will let others go. Maybe 3 is our comfort level. I don't know. Four for this long has not been hard. I think the reason we have no fallen head-over-heals for Gus is because he is too needy. Clyde was KINDA like this, but not as much. As T (my husband) said the other night, Gus needs more love than we can give him. He needs to be with another dog, but maybe just 1, so he can get more attention. Something. Gus is a greyt hound, but he is not our greyt hound.