Gregor Mendel and the Big What If?

I realize that what I’m about to say is utter heresy in the world of animal adoption, but what if you could get your hound unspayed or unneutered?  I admit that I sometimes wonder about this.  Don’t crack those knuckles to warm up your typing fingers just yet.  I cannot be the only person who has ever had this thought.

Baby Blue
(thanks to Drew H. for the photoshop assist)

As I sit looking at my sweet, handsome, big goof Blue, it seems a shame that there will never be any baby Blue’s spreading their handsome genes and sweet nature to the world of greyhoundom.  Blue was a decent racer but not fast enough to be a stud dog.  It seems such a loss to the greyhound gene pool.  No one ever

has loved a pillow or a hotel bed like Blue does.  Wouldn’t a tiny Blue or two curled up on a bed pillow melt any adoption activist’s heart?

I also think about my Girly Girl of course.  What I wouldn’t give to have one of her daughters with me now.  To have her live on in a reserved brindle girl who takes after her mom.  Girly Girl had been slated to be a brood mom.  If that actually had happened, I would never have met her.  She would have been diagnosed with cancer before she ever reached the age of brood mom retirement.  Still I know she would have been such a great mom.  The way she hoarded and brooded all her stuffies gave me just a little glimpse into the part of her life that never was.

Baby Bettina
(thanks to Drew H. for the photoshop assist)

And then there is Bettina.  Yes, I even wonder what her crazy spirit would look like if it could have been crossed with other hounds we know.  The world is going to be a much poorer place when she isn’t stampeding around in it anymore.  I picture a little herd of black greyhounds running rampant through the house. They’d all be barking and shrieking while chewing on the electrical cords, over-turning the garbage can, learning to counter surf and leaving me a tiny corner at the foot of my own bed to sleep on while they gleefully shred the pillows and comforter. 

More magical thinking for sure.  But haven’t you all thought about what it would have been like to have a puppy or two from one or all of your beloved hounds?  I know at least three people who actually do have that situation but they arrived at it in a much different way from the way I am fantasizing.  If you adopt an older retired brood mom then you can have years of fun tracking down and adopting the puppies once they retire off the track!  And seriously, how cute would Blue and Bettina puppies have been!