P's Stacker FCh

I was going to wait until a later time to introduce the "B" team to you. However, recent events compelled me to post about one of them now. The "B" team are my three Greyhounds, Stacker, Allie and Julie. If you have ever seen my wife's Greyhounds you already understand why mine are not on any "A" team in our house.

Stacker is my 9 year old former racer, former lure courser, former phantom crapper (ever found "something" and wonder who did it and when?). I've had him for almost 6 years now. I adopted him on a Thanksgiving weekend from GPA Birmingham. Stacker ran over 100 races at Gulf Greyhound Park in Texas and the track in Birmingham. He was originally adopted out to a person who lived in Cullman, AL. I don't know the full story, but I believe they had more animals than they could deal with and brought him to their vet to have him put down. When the vet asked why, they said that the track was going to do it anyway if they sent him back so they wanted it done on their terms. Well, first, the adoption kennel at the track would not have put him down, period. Secondly, these people didn't stay long enough to see the vet, instead of euthanizing him, sending him BACK to GPA Birmingham. He hung around for a couple months until I showed up and brought him home.

Stacker had a relatively successful (and safe) ASFA lure coursing career for about two years. He achieved the title of Field Champion and was the top Greyhound at the Region 7 Invitational in 2004. This was also the same year that he won my club's trophy which is awarded to the highest scoring Greyhound in his/her rookie coursing season.

This past weekend, my club, Southeastern Greyhound Club, hosted the 3rd running of the ASFA Greyhound National Specialty in conjunction with our all-breed Fullerton Cup coursing trial at Bear Creek Farm in Moreland, GA.

Since this is on the other side of Atlanta from us, we usually bring all the dogs down and take advantage of our good friends' property, SummerWind Farm. There's a nice 12-14 acre fenced pasture at the back of the farm just for the dogs. On Sunday my wife, Jen, took all six to SummerWind while I went to work at the trial. She let them explore the pasture one more time before packing up and heading home.








That would be his new little sister, Riley, and my sister-in-law's Greyhound, Peanut, teaching my boy the painful lesson of standing in front of a head-strong, determined woman (or two).

He got up fine and continued on for the remainder of the walk. Afterwards he appeared a little lame and Jen noticed some swelling on his back left foot. When I came home that evening from the trial, his foot was swollen and he was not bearing any weight on it. By Monday afternoon, his foot was completely swollen. We decided to get x-rays to see if he had a fractured or dislocated toe. Here are the results:

This image is looking down on his back left foot. The toe in question is second from right, or third from left depending on how your brain works. Due to the swelling, the toe is contracted so you cannot get a clear image of the P2 bone. Dr. Hiland at Allatoona Animal Hospital is going to try again on Friday after the swelling has subsided. So, for now, Stacker gets to three-leg it around the house.