Breeds

What is your favorite breed of dog?

Oh my gosh! I have always been a big dog person, but this week I fell in love with a friend's 'toy' size dog, a Papillon named Lola. She is tiny! And she's absolutely the cutest thing I've ever seen. Big feathery ears and a tail like a squirrel's. Lola gathered acorns and took them to her bed. She tried to climb a tree. She pulled the ivy off of the tree. She pounced on bugs. Busy, busy, busy. Ithought I'd found our new dog, but my husband would not hear of having a toy-sized dog. He reminded me that our Greyhound is a former racer who had been trained on live bait. She may be old, but she's still fast. He's right of course. How terrible it would be for this little toy dog to be our Greyhound's toy!

Meeting Approval

We are planning to get another Golden Retriever -- our 13-year-old Greyhound, Miss Moo, will have the final say in our choice of her new companion. She is very active for her age. What are your experiences in bringing a new canine family member into the household with another dog already in residence?

Adopting

Have you ever adopted or rescued a dog?

Miss Moo, our Greyhound who looks like a Jersey cow, is a retired racer and was rescued by the Greyhound Adoption League of Texas when she was about five years old. She actually chose my husband, Guy, for adoption -- she leapt with joy the first time she saw him.

We adopted Tabasco from Stanley Marcus' former home, where his Golden Retriever playfulness had gotten to be too much for the 3-year-old boy of the family now living there. Tabasco was definitely a high-spirited, one-year-old puppy in a BIG body. We changed his name from Duke (after John Wayne) to Tabasco which seemed to fit his personality a lot better. However, for McKinney's Krewe of Barkus Mardi Gras parade in 2006, we dressed him up as John Wayne and he won the grand prize for the dog looking the most like the movie star he portrayed. With a little training, Tabasco turned into the best dog in the whole world.