Breaking Him In

Well it's been a whole week with Cooper running around the house. OK, that may be a stretch for what a greyhound does around the house. Maybe I should re-phrase . . . It's been a whole week with Cooper sleeping around the house and I'm happy to report he's working out just fine. Every day he learns new things and is becoming a more polite house guest. It sure is amazing to watch him develop and evolve from a track dog, used to living in a cage, to a loving pet. I'm really enjoying this experience and I often can't wait to get home just to hug him.

I particularly love the weekends because it gives us more time with the hounds. It's getting harder and harder to take our after-work hikes with the sun falling out of the sky earlier and earlier. This weekend we took the dogs to one of our favorite hiking trails nearby. So far Cooper has only hiked the short trails on our property so this was a big outing. We only took him half the distance we normally take Peanut and that was quite enough for him. It's amazing how such a buff animal can be so out of shape. Actually, I can sort of relate to that myself. Anytime I complain about being out of shape I always get the hairy eyeball. The similarities between me and greyhounds never cease to amaze me. We both can 'look' in shape even when we are not. So we're going to have to break Cooper in slowly and let him work up his endurance for some real hikes this winter. But first we need to teach him what snow is. I'm pretty sure this will be his first experience in the white stuff.

Here are the happy hounds during the hike:

And here they are 2 minutes after getting home: