The road goes ever on ...

... and I will continue to walk the dogs after coming home from running.

But I will no longer blog from here.

But I will continue to chronicle my life with cooking and dogs and running and babies and relatives at www.verygoodcooking.blogspot.com

Thank you to everyone who was interested enough to visit here, to read or to comment.

ANZAC day.

Ninety years ago.

A full moon rose this evening and as it did I thought about the men who died.

Huey plays with dogs.

Took Huey the foster Greyhound to Princes Park this morning.

He was mobbed by dogs.

A Labrador-Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy leapt up and grapped his head with its front paws, just about climbed onto his face. Another did the same.

No reaction from Huey. That's socialisation. He's a great success.

However, once back home, he did bite the flower off a pansy in the back yard.

Sleeping.

Why is it so hard to get the dogs to get off their cushions and go outside at ten o'clock at night when I have the Tallis Scholars playing low; performing timeless and magnificent harmonies unchanged since the fifteenth century, in some cases - on a warm autumn evening - the end of a beautiful, unforgettable day in which a new Pope has been elected, somewhere on the other side of the world?

Why? Because they are sleeping; and because they have no cares; and because the world of men means nothing to them as long as men are not cruel to them.

God's creatures, sleeping peacefully.

Sleep on, beautiful dogs.

God loves you.

ICBM in the backyard.

Into Crutch Ballistic Missile.

That's Huey. Man, is this dog exuberant or WHAT!

He lies at the top of the yard, in the shade of the tree. You can hardly see him. He's dark grey. When I open the back door, he launches.

He's like a rocket. Flies down the yard at a billion miles an hour and collides full-on with my groin.

I'm deflecting him and teaching him not to be so exuberant. It's starting to work.

Then he whines at the back door if Goldie goes in and leaves him outside.

I bring out the spray bottle and spritz him through the screen.

Oh, oh, he's starting to enjoy it. Last time I sprayed him, instead of backing away, he came forward, rolled his head around to catch the spray and revelled in it like a dandy in a hair salon having his do hairsprayed.

Weekend training.

9am at the university track. They describe this as a double pyramid:

Warm-up, stretch etc.

1 x 400, 1 x 800, 1 x 1600, 1 x 800, 1 x 400, 1 x 200.

Then do it all again.

Ran the first 1600, the 'peak' of the pyramid, in 5.36 and the second in 5.58.

This was my first Saturday morning session - never thought I could cope with speed training so early in the morning. It was fine. But hard.

Sunday, a leisurely ninety minute run along the Yarra trail with pick-ups towards the end.

Then an hour walk, late in the day, with Goldie and Huey through Princes Park as the sun went down, shedding gold everywhere amongst the autumnal trees. Beautiful.

Huey arrived at our house yesterday.

Huey is just your average washed up Greyhound.

He's five and he hadn't raced since late 2003, which means he's been cooling his heels in some concrete kennels somewhere for a year and a half. Just like an ageing lieutenant towards the end of a too-long war. Too old for active service but too young to be discharged. They come in handy for office duties, in stores or administration, mapping and the like. Old lieutenants, I mean. Old greyhounds are good for nothing. They usually get discharged by being put down.

Huey is dark grey, which is called 'blue', with flecks of grey, especially around the face. He came into the adoption program with worms, heavy dandruff, fleas and dirty ears and teeth. I'd call this benign neglect rather than outright mistreatment, but I could be wrong. Many of these hounds have had a structure to their early lives on which they thrive. Training, living in a pack situation, good food, occasional race, lots of travel and new smells, human contact. Many of these dogs have a better life than dogs who are consigned to a back yard with no human or canine contact for eight hours or more a day. I saw one recently - I'm tall and I could see over the side fence of a property into a very small yard. A rottweiler was chained to a rock, in hot sun. No shade. No contact. No nothing. That's cruelty.

Huey smiles. Huey loves food. Huey loves a walk. Huey loves Goldie.

Goldie doesn't mind Huey. She'll warm to him.

Huey is thin and we will counterract this - as well as helping to eliminate dandruff - by feeding him, along with chicken mince stew, sradines in oil, cheese, peanut butter sandwiches and lard.

Huey's in for a good time.

Posted without comment.

Read.

All right, I will comment.

No, we are not the higher species.

At the other end of the cruelty scale, some dumbass rang up the veterinary talk-back radio show segment and wanted a solution to her problem. (Today's guest vet. was an oncologist and tried to explain he wasn't going to be solving anyone's animal behaviour problems but DID THEY LISTEN? NO THEY DIDN'T. THEY KEPT RINGING UP AND ASKING HIM WHY THEIR DOG ATE CAT POO.)

The woman's problem: she had a 12 month old Labrador which had lived inside with her until she had recently moved to a smaller house where the dog's tail 'swished everything' so she shipped the dog outside and could the oncologist tell her how to stop it crying at night, please?

I don't usually curse but FOR FUCK'S SAKE. The dog is a pack animal. You let it live with the pack, then one day you throw it outside in the cold away from the pack because its tail might knock over the picture of Uncle Hamish taken at the beach in 1971. And then you wonder why it cries.

And I wasn't going to comment.

Oh, then a woman rang up with a complex question about heart surgery which the vet. guy was able to answer. They discussed cost and life expectancy and the radio host, incredulous, asked the woman how much she would be prepared to pay for surgery on her dog. 'Anything it took,' she replied, 'as long as there was a good prognosis and a reasonable life expectancy.'

Thank you, Ma'am. You restored my faith in humans. Against all the odds.

Cats.

I now have three cats living in my front yard. And my back yard, when they get the chance.

They are cute little things, two pure white and one black and white.

They really belong to next door, but they clearly prefer my garden for some reason.

I do wish they wouldn't kill the birds, however.

Knees are trouble.

My right knee is trouble.

I step out of the car, it collapses. There is a momentary burst of sheer pain and then I straighten up and it's OK. It's out of track. Or something. I start to run and it's excruciating.

A run some more and try to get it so that it doesn't hurt. After a while it doesn't hurt. If it doesn't hurt when I'm running full pelt, that means it's OK.

Doesn't it?

Then it hurts again next day.

Had a gentle run of about eight kilometres yesterday, twice around Princes Park. Before lunch. With Theo. The knee settled down after a while. Theo couldn't go any faster because of his hamstring tightness.

What a pair of crocks.

Then we went to the Irish Corkman and had lunch - the biggest burgers in the world. Yum.

Running in the dark.

Daylight saving ended for the year on Sunday.

Last night, three laps of Princes Park (each 3.2 km) with 'surges' along the top and bottom and part of one side.

Autumn's here, the leaves are turning golden, but it is still warm.

It will be winter before we know it.

$1.25 million says the Tasmanian tiger exists.

With that kind of money on offer, someone will try to fake one.

Hmm. Wonder what Goldie would look like if I painted a few stripes on her.

More lost dog publicity.

Yet another story from the Herald Sun, today on page 3. The paper has by far the highest circulation in Australia and reputedly in the Southern Hemisphere and you can't buy page 3.

"Basically there are thousands of dogs who lose their lives every year," said SADS (Save-a-Dog Scheme) founder and president Pam Weaver. "I was very upset about these dogs being put down so I wanted to do something about it."

She estimates SADS has saved up to 8000 dogs.

"We have saved thousands and thousands, literally. About 400 to 500 a year," Ms Weaver said.

SADS offers new home programs for dogs whose owners have died or can no longer look after them.

Why do people give up their pets?

"Most of the time they don't have a good reason," Ms Weaver said.

"If we didn't take the dogs they'd be put down."

SADS wants to change community attitudes to abandoned pets. "Just killing animals isn't right. It isn't acceptable," Ms Weaver said.

Greyhound Molly looking for a home.

A fellow greyhound foster carer with Molly.

The Herald Sun is notably generous with stories about rehoming dogs as well as animal welfare in general. They regularly run promotional pieces about the Lost Dogs Home, RSPCA and more.

Track season over.

Track season is over and we're heading towards autumn and winter which means cross country and road racing. That's a lot of fun. You haven't lived until you've run ten kilometres through mud in driving rain.

It's been a long and tiring summer track season stretching from October. We failed to make the final so the season ended Saturday. The finalists go on into April.

I doubled up in most meets, performing my 'specialty' event, the two or three kilometre walk; and then running either an 800, 1500 or 5000 an hour or so later. One Saturday I completed three races. I'm spent. I've been doing this for over thirty years. I must have run a zillion laps on athletics tracks all over Melbourne. But I still enjoy it so I'm never going to stop, I'll just get slower and slower!

(Speaking of walking, it is an odd event: we have a young guy from Ethiopia running with our group - Amir - who came along to his first track meet just as the walking race was getting under way. 'What are those guys doing?' he asked, amazed. 'They're walking, Amir.' 'But why?' he replied.)

At training last night, coach Tony said he was going to 'nurse' me and a couple of other old crocks through to the start of cross country season! Cool - that meant a 50 minute run with a fifteen minute surge at the end (i.e after 35 minutes) with three of the others. The rest of the group were doing one of the most brutal sessions - 6 x 1600 metres with a three minute jog break in between each.

Does the dog think it's a sheep?

Or does the sheep think it's a dog?

Or don't they care?

Bye, Cowboy. Another foster off to a new home.

He was especially affectionate all day today. Like he thought to himself 'this is it! I'm going to be here forever!'.

Then Melanie from the Greyhound Adoption Program arrived at 3 o'clock and led Cowboy out to the GAP vehicle, put him in the back and drove off into the distance, taking Cowboy to his forever home. I saw his pale face smiling as the car got smaller and smaller. Then he was gone.

Just like that. It hurts.

After three fun weeks of starting out by grabbing his food but then learning manners within days; being taught the ropes by Goldie, our 13-year-old female Brittany; going for runs along the beach near our beach house; endlessly sniffing around the house; bowing a lot to me every morning; slurping his long tongue into a glass of wine I had accidentally left unattended on the coffee table and actually drinking most of it without upsetting the glass; jumping up at the loungeroom window when seeing a possum and ripping the lace curtain RIGHT down the middle; and otherwise being the best and most affectionate and intelligent and playful and loving greyhound we have fostered since ... the last one.

I hope he gets a good home.

Not enough exercise.

Although I'm not sure how you walk a cat.

I grew up with cats, not dogs. They were never fat. My father was afraid of dogs, having been bitten by one as a child.

Lyrebirds fly.

I was driving down a mountain and saw one ... two .. three ... four ... lyrebirds kind of flapping across the road. The first looked awkward, like it wasn't really flying. The others, the same.

I didn't know they could fly.

It was before six in the morning on an isolated road in a rainforest.

They looked weird. They flapped across the road with their 'lyre' between their legs.

Beautiful.

I had only seen one lyrebird (on its bower, fifteen years ago deep in the Dandenong Ranges) before.

And yesterday I saw four in a few minutes.

Ever seen a dog eat a chocolate crackle?

It's the funniest thing. It kind of explodes, with chocolatey rice bubbles going in all directions. Then the dog licks up all the yummy shards.

Yes, we spoil our dogs.

(And don't nobody tell me chocolate is bad for dogs. There's only a little cocoa in chocolate crackles. Not enough to hurt them.)

That looks nice, what is it?

Yesterday I took Cowboy to the vet, see previous post. Goldie came too, for the ride. She stalks into the waiting room and heads straight for the weighing machine. Oh, yes, she knows it well.

It was around lunchtime. I stood at the receptionist's desk. She had her lunch on the desk. Usually they have like a half-eaten sandwich or maybe a cup of soup. Something like that.

She had a flat bowl on the desk. It contained light-brown chunks in a light-brown gravy.

I totally had to stop myself pointing and saying, 'Is that dog food?' or 'My God, are you eating dog food for lunch?' or 'Come on, what does that stuff taste like?' or even 'I knew pet food company reps provided free samples but I didn't know the staff actually sampled it!'.

It looked more like dog food than dog food. The wide flattish bowl, the light-brown chunks.

It wasn't dog food.

Unless dogs have learned to use the fork that was in the bowl.

Back on four legs.

Cowboy the foster greyhound is on cortisone and antibiotics for five days after his mishap (see previous post).

Apart from that, situation normal.

I must say, however, the possums on one side and the cats on the other are driving him crazy. Totally crazy. They're driving me crazy too. The cats, not the possums. Why don't people spey their cats? I've disposed of so many stray cats by obtaining the council cage and taking them to the shelter.

I should use my grandmother's technique. Stick them in a sock and drown them in a bucket of warm water. (She only did that when they were newborn - lived in the country and there were no vets handy.)

Six o'clock Tuesday.

Cowboy has a mad minute.

T. hears a very loud metallic crash followed by Cowboy howling fiercely and then crying piteously.

6.01pm
She rushes out to find him on the ground whining. He has a cut on his left rear knee.

6.30pm
Cowboy's leg is all nicely bandaged up and Cowboy is sitting comfortably, like a cossetted child, on his double-thickness mattress, right there in our living room. Goldie is snoring on her tartan rug, ignoring him completely.

8pm
I arrive home and try to do a bit of detective work after T. tells me about the crashing noise. The problem with these greyhound limb injuries is that they can be minor or major, depending on what they hit. Our dear departed Billy used to whine and cry at the slightest bump and then be fine a minute later. I went into the back yard and decided it must have been one of the green outdoor chairs. They are really old and are made of solid iron instead of the aluminium they use these days. You can put your back out just looking at them. He must have run into one, hence the metallic crash. Ouch. Bone damage?

9pm
He's chewed his bandage off. I repack it after literally having to pick Cowboy up in order to put him outside for a wee before he goes to bed (inside). He doesn't know how to stand up using three legs (I can manage it with only two, don't know what his problem is) although once in position manages to stay upright.

10pm
Bed. Cowboy has trouble lying down (their back legs are such great levers) and he whines sporadically through the night.

6am Wednesday
I put him out for a wee, same routine picking him up. He chews his bandage off again while he's outside. The wound is bleeding slightly.

7am
Cowboy and Goldie have breakfast. Mmmm, chicken mince! Cowboy eats very well. That's a good sign.

9am
Cowboy tries to run for the door. That's a good sign. But he is not using his hurt leg at all.

Midday.
He's chewed his bandage off again. This time I leave it off. It's not bleeding. The sun and fresh will do him good.

3pm
Snack-time. A piece of cheese. He's looking freer but still favouring his leg, not using it. He gets very confused when coming inside. He has only just learned stairs in the last week and now's one leg short! Vet appointment made for tomorrow, couldn't get in today.

Cowboy.

Chris finished his three-week stay and went back with a glowing report. Didn't destroy anything, wasn't aggressive, was perfectly behaved and endearing.

I may have saved him - his previous foster reports were not good.

Cowboy arrived on the same day. Different to Chris's classical curved elegance, Cowboy is stockier and shorter. You have to look twice to see that he is a greyhound. It's his first house. He grabbed at his food to begin with but within two days began to understand you don't need to fight for food in this house ... and there's plenty of it.

He should be called Thumper, he wags his tail so hard. Goldie has learnt to avoid the general tail area of dogs with excessively waggy tails as she was always getting whacked in the eyes.

Dog's breakfast.

Here's what I cook for the dogs:

Chicken stew.

I obtain chicken mince - pet grade - from a local butcher for $1.50 a kilo. This goes into a large pot to which I add a grated carrot, a stick of two of grated celery and two crushed cloves of garlic (good for their skin). Cover with water, bring to the boil, simmer for 10 minutes. Then add a cup or two of rice and/or pasta shapes, cook until done. Cool. They love it. It's also no trouble when you get into the habit.

As well as this, they have a can or two or three of sardines (generic brand, 59c a can) or mackerel, an equally cheap fish, each week; a couple of chicken frames each (50c a kilogram from Coburg market) and a marrow bone once a week to keep them amused and their teeth clean.

This diet is far better than commercial dog food and improves their digestion, skin tone and ... the smell and consistency of their droppings (well it is an important factor when you have to pick it up every day!).

State champion old guy.

I started competing in track and field in 1970, age 12. I finally won a Victorian Championship title last weekend. Hmmm. Only took me 35 years. I must be a late developer.

OK, it was a 40-plus title, in the 3000 metres walk (an event I came to specialise in over the years) but a title nevertheless.

The guy who came second is a retired surgeon who has moved to the country to run an olive tree farm. He resumed race-walking some years ago after finishing in the 1970s. He specialises in longer distances and is world best for his age over 30,000 metres.

On the presentation dais (in front of a very small crowd at Olympic Park in Melbourne, 10pm on a Friday) the guy who came third and I were chatting about dinner - he was having a vegetable curry and I was looking forward to a fish curry. It was late and we were hungry. The retired surgeon had already eaten earlier.

Yes, track and field is a very genteel sport at our age.

A dog called 'Chris'.

Chris (scroll down) is a classically proportioned greyhound. He is so tall, he has to stoop like a new foal to feed. His muscles are powerful and his deep chest curves elegantly back to fine rear quarters. He is all curves. Even his tail curves up and around in a perfect circle. Some greyhounds are squarer, but Chris is the classic pharaoh shape.

What's with the name? Who would call a dog Chris? I've started calling him Christopher Robin or Mr Christian.

For the last two days - temperatures in the high thirties - I've been sponging the dogs down and giving them ice-cream.

Today - now - it is eleven degrees. I've just fed Christy and put his coat on. He needs to put on some condition.

He's been good, by the way. Separation anxiety can be hard to lose but he's doing OK.

Running through Arthur Streeton's paintings.

Haven't written much about running lately but it doesn't mean I haven't been running. Summer track season is now half over and our competitions have been mainly conducted on cracking hot days, with the couple of evening meets also coinciding with very hot weather.

Training has proceeded right through summer with speed sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a group run on Wednesday evenings and a long run Sunday mornings after Saturday's competition.

The speed sessions could be fourteen 400s on the university track; six loops of a 1600 metre course in Princes Park with three minute recoveries; six or eight 400 metre hills in Royal Park. Sometimes a relatively easier session such as six 600s or three eleven minute surges with two minute recovery jogs. In the heat, these sessions are arduous. Our running bunch has varying abilities and we encourage each other and re-group for the slower runners by running the recovery parts of the linear sessions in reverse until they catch up. We also trash-talk each other mercilessly.

Yesterday's competition was at Williamstown in overcast, stormy conditions. First up was the 3000 metres walk (an event I accidentally won many years ago and which I have since been unable to escape being selected, it really is an oddity but so is polevault and hammerthrowing) followed half an hour later by the 5 kilometre run. Twelve and a half laps of torture. In recent weeks I have been running 1500s and thought they were hard but the 5000 metres is a shocker.

This morning we had an eighteen kilometre run along the Yarra to Heidelberg, a beautiful location where nineteenth century artists used to go to paint (the Heidelberg School). There's an information poster along the walking track telling some of the history of Arthur Streeton.

We didn't stop to read it but I felt I was running through his beautiful paintings.

Maybe I was.

Day Three.

We had to go out twice. First, during the day. The dogs were fine when I got back. I checked everything (I'm quite the detective) and found paw marks in the dust on the sill of the only window reachable from the yard. Chris had had his feet up there seeing if he could get in.

Otherwise all OK.

Went out in the evening for a shorter time. Back in an hour. Chris had jumped the low vegetable patch fence, jumped another to get out of it into the very small sideway between the garage and the side fence. He was still there. I heard his body moving against the steel garage wall. The space was so narrow he couldn't turn around. I had to get in there myself and pick him up and carry him out. He's a big dog, one of the biggest we've fostered.

Separation anxiety. They try to follow you because they cannot be separated from the pack. They are pack animals.

Blue - another anxious dog we fostered in November - had tried a similar thing at the beach house. I came back to find that he had squeezed through a space apparently no more than six inches to get under the house. This long greyhound nose was staring at me from under the house, the rest of his body still underneath!

Heat.

T. wouldn't come with me to drop off Sailor. Said it was too hot. Well, she's right, it was 35 degrees celsius and the predicted thunderstorms had not arrived.

The real reason was that she didn't want to see Sailor go. He was too much like Billy.

I dropped Sailor off at the meeting point. The 'fostering' adopters were there. They seemed fine. She had two children who made all the right moves, cuddled Sailor, were gentle with him, showed common sense, asked me intelligent questions. I do like children who ask intelligent questions. (I know immediately about the suitability of people with dogs. People with people for that matter. I spent three wasted hours of my life shaking my head in disbelief at the wedding of T's best friend. They divorced within three months.)

I'm raving. Back to the subject, which is not humans.

Melanie, from GAP, had brought along Chris.

Chris is trouble.

Chris bit a fosterer's Jack Russell, who needed veterinary attention.

Chris chewed another fosterer's 'french doors', according to his report.

Chris is three years old, won two races and is losing his fur. Stress? Stress through being in foster care for over four months now?

I don't know.

I'll let you know.

We don't have french doors. What the hell are french doors?

35 degrees, 10pm.

T. is sitting with her swollen feet in a low, wide bucket of water to which I have added ice cubes.

Sailor approaches from the right, steps his front legs into the water, licks her knees, pants hotly on them.

Goldie approaches from the left, drinks from the water. Pants.

T. is in pain but she is also in heaven because she loves dogs like nothing on earth.

Musical dogs.

I was away for a week at the beach. Just three days after Sailor arrived, the lady from the greyhound adoption program left a message on my home phone saying she needed him back straight away because a potential adopter wanted a dog for her son's birthday which was the next day or something. She also said the adopter wanted to 'foster' Sailor for a week before officially adopting.

Now let's see. Someone wants a dog sight unseen immediately because it's for someone's birthday. That's wrong for a start. You adopt a dog for the dog not because it's someone's birthday.

Secondly, she wants to adopt, but 'foster' first? That means she wants the dog on seven days free approval. Forget it, sister. That's not how you adopt anything, animal or human.

After checking my home messages, I called the GAP lady back, telling her I'd be at the beach until the end of the week. She sounded a little frazzled and had to hang up suddenly, said there were people waiting to see her.

She called back later apologising for being gruff; said she'd put the potential adopter off until next week. Maybe she found another dog for the birthday boy.

OK, it must be a difficult job, placing the right dog with the right home. There's only so many questions you can ask people when they say 'Well, I want a dog that goes with the furniture, doesn't ever bark and is guaranteed not to dig, pee accidentally in the house or attack the neighbour's cat'. When I was at the greyhound kennels a few weeks ago there was a 'return' standing sadly in one of the cages - an adopted dog the adopters had later decided they didn't want after all.

There was a further case the week before, but instead of returning the dog to the adoption program, the owners had turned it in to a shelter. Its picture was published in the Herald Sun which is the only reason it wasn't put down. Someone saw the picture and took in the dog.

In my former profession they said 'Never work with children or animals'.

That's crap. Never work with stupid adult humans would be closer.

It's five in the morning. Let's play.

Well, he is only two years old. He's still a puppy.

Sailor the foster greyhound wakes at about five and runs around trying to wake everyone else up. I let him out to pee then he comes back in expecting everyone to be up and about. Well, you do when you're a pup.

Except no-one is up. So Sailor bounces up to Goldie (13 this year) and tries to get her going, thrusts a paw at her or gives her a playful nip while she's asleep on her sumptuous tartan mattress, well-stuffed and probably more comfortable than my bed.

The growl starts somewhere deep down, probably near her stomach or somewhere, and rumbles slowly up through her chest. It's like distant thunder. She doesn't even open her eyes.

Sailor steps back as if he's seen an apparition or been stung by a bee.

Then he slowly returns to his bed and goes back to sleep. It's no fun being awake and all alone.

No fun at all.

*

He has very pale pinkish skin under his black and white coat, pinker than most, it appears to me. Maybe that's why he has a sunburnt nose. Yesterday he had a sore foot as well, couldn't take him for a walk. He was limping around like a old soldier. I examined his foot, couldn't see anything. Sometimes it's a minute shard of glass or a prickle; other times they hurt themselves doing their mad minute. Sailor's mad minute lasts about four minutes, so ther'es plenty of opportunity for him to maybe strain a tendon or hurt a muscle. We usually give them the twenty-four-hour test - see if they're still limping next day.

This morning the limp had gone and he was as good as gold.

Hello, Sailor.

A new foster greyhound. He's black and white, two years old and is with us for two weeks. We're his first foster home but he's pretty good, knows how to walk up steps and sit on a rug.

He tries to get Goldie going but she won't have a bar of it, just walks away. So he has a mad minute on his own instead.

Sailor has a sunburnt nose and we have to apply zinc cream by day. So he's black and white with a white nose.

More lost dogs.

First it's Christmas, people go away and abandon their dogs while others buy puppies for gifts, then it's New Year's fireworks.

The dog kingdom puts up with all and keeps smiling. With a little help from some human friends.