June 22nd, 2010 Admin
I’d just like to say that Greyhounds make FABULOUS pets!
Mine is Chloe, she’s 8 now, raced for 4 years and bred for 2, before she came to us. They are total couch potatoes, being built to sprint and not for endurance. I just took Chloe for a 40 minute walk – all she’ll need for the day. Usually she’ll get 2 shorter ones, but we have to be somewhere else tonight. She’s now lying on the duvet beside my desk and she’ll stay there until the fire is on upstairs and she’ll come up to lie on her beanbag in front of it 
She never barks (except at hedgehogs) unless something is a problem (like pain, or she really, really needs to go outside NOW!) and then only once and wait for me to respond.
They love to run with other greyhounds, some will run by themselves but Chloe doesn’t often. She just ambles along when we go for a walk, sniffing earnestly at odd plants and trees. Chloe lives with 2 cats and, after a period of mild tension, they have all come to a detente where they will sniff each other and that’s about it. Chloe is quite timid, more than usual for a greyhound – some are bold, some not so much. She doesn’t like surprises or loud noises or things moving over her head.
I have ME and so not a lot of energy. A greyhound is a perfect dog for me as I can manage the 30 minutes we usually take for a walk, without knackering myself for the rest of the day. The low energy requirement is good for elderly people as well, and those who are movement impaired.
They’re quite smart dogs, though some can appear a bit dim. They learn easily and quickly, responding well to training and treats. You do need to fence your yard though, as they are accomplished escape artists and happy to wander.
They love routine and company, but Chloe is okay with changes to her day, and copes well when I have to go out without her. She is prone to trotting off and cleaning out the cats’ bowls if left to herself. She’s always very happy when we get home, even if we don’t immediately take her for a walk. We initially had some separation anxiety issues, but that didn’t last long and she’s fine now (though she always gives me a very sorrowful look as I close the door!). If we had the space, I’d get another one, as they’d keep each other company, but it wouldn’t be fair on the dogs (big house, but not that big) or the cats.
I can’t believe how quickly I’ve become a total dog person, since we got Chloe. Once upon a time I was all “Hmm cute woman, has a dog with her” but now I’m all “Hmm, nice dog, good shape, looks well fed. Oh, there’s a woman holding her lead. Nice lead.”
In New Zealand, Greyhounds As Pets is the organisation that arranges adoptions, but most countries where greyhound racing exists have a counterpart organisation or six. I googled http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=greyhounds+canada and got several different organisations, covering different parts of that country.
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May 6th, 2010 Admin
I’ve had a couple of people ask where I’ve been recently, as my Twitter quota has been a little down, and blogging non-existent, which is a shame because it’s been an interesting few weeks. Welp, I’ve been remedicating. I’ve never been backwards about my situation and here’s (more or less) what I wrote to a friend the other day:
I’m the one keeping four of you sane, according to statistics.
I had a breakdown in 1999 which resulted in permanent clinical depression, and I’ve been on various medications since. Mainly anxiety-driven, but it brings my tolerance thresh-hold waaaaay down, and I tend to explode. Usually only verbally, but the other week I lifted a guy off his motorscooter by the neck.
Admittedly, he had just run it into me on a non-vehicular footpath, so legitimate self-defenced, but still not an appropriate response. Time to visit the doctor and let him experiment on my brain some more, I thought. So he’s switching me from the SSRI (paroxetine) to an MAOI called Parnate, but I have to completely detox from the paroxetine first. That means a week of hell, with no medication then two weeks (ish) of more hell while we wait to see if it has any effect 
I’m not hugely hopeful, as he’s already started the paper-work with Pharmac to get funding for the next stage of medication. You may be able to deduce why I’m so keen to determine what ACTA’s effect on Pharmac will be…
This is the principal reason I work from home. The stress of an office is just too much, on me and my workmates.
Add to that, I’ve had M.E. since I was a teenager (and I’ll be 50 next year) which we found out about 15 years ago. That puts some physical limits on me as well. I think Julia was looking for a refund, but Mum refused to take me back.
I decided back then I wasn’t going to hide from the depression. It is an illness and not something to be ashamed of, blahdeblah, etc. Kirwan’s revelations have been a huge boost, and Mike King is waving the flag too.
My symptoms are mostly anxiety, and anger. I’ve had temper issues since I was a kid. I try to focus the anger onto causes, like ACTA and such, and general injustices that need to be yelled at, godammit! and it was probably a singular factor in my public service career. My Hospital Anxiety Depression scores tend toward the anxiety side.
My wife Julia has been brilliant, and I couldn’t have managed without her. Yeah, it’s a lifetime thing – my doc told me that after my third crash that the drugs weren’t fixing the problem, but just helping me cope, and they would now be a permanent fixture. Oh, well, better than sitting in a darkened room playing FreeCell.
One of the great things about this sort of period in my life is realizing that I have great friends and family who have been ringing me regularly just to see how I am and to chat, y’know, like normal people do And I want to say thanks especially to my sisters, who are wonderful people, and to my friends Daniel, Nic and Julian who have been awesome about keeping in touch. Family kind of have to (thought it is hugely appreciated, guys!) but friends who bother to go that extra mile are friends indeed.
So, I’m already at the end of the first week of new pills, and feeling a bit better. I’m looking forward to a month’s time when I should be through all the settling in, side-effects period. Until then, I’ll be sporadic, I guess, though I note Twitter is creeping back (apparently, I average about 54 a day – eeep!).
Ka kite, people.
UPDATE: It occurred to me, as I drove to pick milady up from the train, that family DON’T kind of have to. I sort of expect families to work the way mine does, with love, support and respect, even when we disagree on things (had a delightful barney with my brother on law and justice the other day), but I realise that many families don’t work that way. When I think about it, I praise whatever deity may be listening that mine does.
Posted in Health | 11 Comments »
February 17th, 2010 Admin
I signed an electronic petition against the “expressway” tonight. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/kapiti-coast
@jethrocarr asked me on Twitter:
so whats the difference between the express way and the idea of removing traffic lights etc to improve flow on the existing road?
I responded thus:
The expressway would be 4 lanes of 100K traffic from Raumati South to Otaki. Residential areas on both sides. Only 3 on/off points which will debouch onto local roading systems that are not planned to be upgraded to handle the load.
Where’s the benefit? Still going to be a dual carriage-way from Otaki north, and Paekakariki south, so everything will have to merge there (until Transmission Gully gets built for the south).
The only time the traffic is that much of a problem is peak hour and holidays, and that’s mostly due to crappy driving. Apparently, 12 minutes will be saved between Palmerston North and Wellington but many millions will be spent to achieve that.
The Coast has been built around SH1 forever. There is less disruption involved (and cost) in improving it (without carving through people’s homes) than there is in discarding it for an expressway for National’s trucking backers (IMHO, of course).
People up here spent *years* sorting out the best option for the communities and the through traffic, which is a 2 lane local road and bridge, which would take 20% of the traffic of SH1 immediately. Joyce comes along (and uses the same consultants – something odd there) to come up with his “solution” in just a few weeks. He is explicitly excluding rail from his “strategic transportation plan” of “nationally significant roads”, which reeks more than a little bit of special interests being catered for while everyone else can go whistle.
Phew!
I really, really want the community to win this one, not just because it will affect my personal quality of life, but because the process is wrong.
Posted in Kapiti | No Comments »
June 15th, 2009 Admin
We have cats. We’ve had cats for 5 years, since we inherited Chloe I and Juno from a friend’s parents. Chloe was a beautiful blue Burmese, with a classic profile and gorgeous friendly nature. Juno, Rod assured us, was a pedigreed Abyssinian and both were about 7 years old. Seems Rod didn’t know his parents’ cats as well as he knew his parents because Chloe, while a blue Burmese, was actually around 13 and, while Juno was around 7, she was either the fattest and hairiest Abyssinian in existence or she was something else. After consulting with a few friends, we determined that she’s an Abyssinian/Tabby cross, with Abyssinian colouring and Tabby shape. Nevertheless, we loved them both and they rapidly wormed their way into our lives.
Chloe lived with us for a year, but was felled by hyperthyroidism and stomach cancer. We were pretty devastated when she died, despite the short duration of the relationship, and Juno seemed equally upset, wandering the hall and whining for her friend. So, we thought we’d get her a new friend and decided on another Burmese. We came up to a breeder in Waikanae and picked Gus as a 4 week old kitten. We had to wait until he was 12 weeks to bring him home.
Now, Juno is not your common cat, even for a cross. In fact, she’s an absolute fruitbat, seeing martians in every corner (even us, at times!) and prone to chasing ghosts, but we weren’t prepared for her reaction to Gus’ arrival – she stopped eating AND drinking, and got to within 24 hours of renal failure.
Eventually, Juno and Gus came to an understanding – Gus is a Burmese and took charge and Juno put up with it
When we moved up the coast to Waikanae, we thought Juno would be the one we’d have to worry about, but she adjusted very quickly and was the one who started exploring. Once Gus felt secure, he started ranging wider – Juno rarely goes beyond the confines of the house and deck – but if a new cat comes visiting, it’s Juno who’s defending the premises while Gus hangs back, going “what she said!” to the intrusion.
One thing we found was that a park exists across the road. Julia went exploring and came back and said “We’re morally obliged to get a dog!” but we thought it probably needed to wait until, at least, Juno had passed on. But 2 years later, we went to the Medieval Market and met greyhounds for the first time.
Greyhounds As Pets is an independent charitable trust established by Greyhound Racing New Zealand to find pet homes for greyhounds which are no longer able to race. They had a stall at the market and several owners had brought their dogs along in support.
They. Are. Beautiful. And they fit so perfectly with our lifestyle (particularly mine) that it seemed like destiny calling, with reversed charges. We fell in love, got a brochure and signed up within a few days.
In the time since, some people have commended us for “rescuing” a greyhound, but we really haven’t. While the practice before GAP was generally to euthanise retired greyhounds, it’s the owners and trainers who pay to put them into the programme. Sure, we pay to get them out the other end and bring them home, but it’s not like we’ve taken them off death row. My praise goes to those who take an animal from the RSPCA, where they really are on the block.
Anyway, GAP checked us over to ensure that the dog would be going to a good home, checked the premises for the same, mostly that they could handle our stairs, and told us we might have to wait a while as we needed a cat-friendly dog. In the end, it took 3 months before they called us to say that Chloe was available and were we interested. We took the name as an omen and brought Chloe II into hour home 3 weeks ago. She’s fitted in remarkably well. And once again, it’s Juno showing courage ahead of Gus.
Gus stays well out of Chloe’s way, although he is finally coming in through the cat door while she’s in the room. He’s learned not to run across the floor, as that really gets her interest (doesn’t help that he’s the same colour as the ‘rabbit’ she was trained to chase!). Juno, however, stood up to Chloe’s presence from day one and it’s Chloe that gives her the wide berth. I heard yelping this afternoon and came upstairs to find that Juno had Chloe backed into a corner and was bullying her again. But they generally coexist now in the same room.
Greyhounds are affectionate, low smell (not completely smell-less, however), low mess as they only have one layer of hair and very bright. They also don’t need much maintenance, being sprinters rather than endurance dogs, and only require 2×20 mins walk a day with occasional runs. With my ME, that’s perfect – it gets me out for as much exercise as I can manage without short-changing the dog. The books refer to them as indoor dogs, as they have no layer of body fat to keep them warm, and indelicately call them “the couch potatoes of the dog world”, which is fair as she certainly lies about the place a lot. But she’s always ready for a rub and kind words and tends to follow me around the house all day. I’m totally smitten but doing my best to be an “alpha dog” and maintain control. I’ll keep you posted on how that works out.
Posted in Pets | 3 Comments »
February 17th, 2009 Admin
justa.geek.nz supports the Blackout
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
