Our Kids' Pedigrees

Push aside those bumper stickers about kids and honor rolls, our kids' pedigrees are available online! I refer, of course, to our adopted, ex-racing greyhounds, whose pedigrees Isaac was looking up today at greyhound-data.com. (One does start to get the feeling that almost anything you can think of can now be found online.)

Most of you will know about racing greyhounds, who have a professional racing career of only 2 to 3 years, except in rare cases, after which time they "retire". Not so long ago, "retirement" meant that the animals were destroyed, and many still are. However, for some time now there has been a growing "rescue" movement, now many, many groups that work with racing kennel owners to place "retiring" dogs in homes as pets. We understand that 1999 was the big turn-around year when more dogs were placed as pets than were euthanized. Greyhounds make great companions for many reasons — but ask me later, since this post is about our kids.

You may not be aware that there are two breeding groups of greyhounds, at least in the US. American Kennel Club greyhounds are bred for show; racing dogs' pedigrees are monitored by the National Greyhound Association. I mention this for two reasons: 1) if you look at AKC pictures of greyhounds and compare them to NGA greyhounds you'll see some differences — the breeding lines have diverged some over time; and 2) all records about racing greyhounds are kept by the NGA and associated groups, not the AKC.

We have shared our house so far with four dogs, two of which are still with us in person, all of which had distinctive personalities (to say the least!). We have yet to find any records for "Sunshine Spur", known to us as Sandy. This may not be surprising since she came to us after having lived in two or three other households and her records were incomplete or confused. For the others, though, there are pedigrees in the database and we found it fun to look at them.

Dowland* (track name "Don't Point": pedigree) has lived with us the longest, since 1999. Born in 1995, he's enjoying his advancing middle age. His paternal grandsire ("Dutch Bahama") and maternal great-grandsire ("Downing") both appear to be racers of some distinction — although Dowland himself was only average. When I look at the pictures for those two, I easily convinced myself that Dowland has Dutch Bahama's eyes and Downing's ears and stance. That's Dutch Bahama in the photo.

Arlo (track name "Rapido Arlo": pedigree) has a less distinguished past with a pedigree that exhibits a lot more inbreeding, although I don't really know the implications of that. He was born in 1977 and died in March, 2007.

Azalea (track name "PG Azalea": pedigree) is our newest arrival, an energetic red-brindled female born in 1999. I think her sire ("Flying Donruss") and dam ("Y Knot Orchid") have rather silly names, but the photograph of her maternal grandsire, "Flying Train", suggests a noble heritage if you ask me.
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*With a track name like "Don't Point", you can see why we changed his name when he came to us: would we call him "Don't" for short? Hardly. Anyway, we had decided to try to find a name with an initial 'D' sound, and we thought and thought until the obvious stuck us and we named him for one of our favorite composers, John Dowland (1563 – 1626). Why obvious? For some years we'd thought of John Dowland's big hit, Lacrimae Antiquae (sometimes sung with the words "Flowe My Teares"), to be "our song".

Posted on April 16, 2007 at 22.53 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Curious Stuff

2 Responses

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  1. Written by Jay
    on Monday, 30 April 2007 at 09.20
    Permalink

    I have no clue how I found your blog… but you had the oldest known greyhound ever!!! Arlo was 30 years old?!?!

    Jay =)

  2. Written by jns
    on Friday, 4 May 2007 at 13.24
    Permalink

    An amazing longevity, no? Especially for a greyhound. Of course, I meant 1997, but I'll leave the typo to amaze other grey-aficionados who may visit.

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