This is Danny, a new greyhound Service Dog that was trained for support and mobility by our friends at Greyt Hearts. We loved seeing him with his new mom.
Having Daniel at the booth provides a real life example of a dog who is undergoing successful cancer treatment. It is a blessing that he feels so well AND can work the booth the way he does ... his grey face and bright eyes drew people in like bait. Ruby comes with us to work on her socialization in strange situations and to show that GRF has greyhounds as the face of the organization, but the work that we support benefits all breeds of dogs ... the fact that Ruby is cute as can be doesn't hurt either.
Blurry iPhone photo in the low light of the exhibition hall, made even blurrier when I played with it using PicMonkey. It still shows Danny's sweet face and bright eyes.
In addition to giving out information, promoting our benefit weekend in November, and trolling for donations, we were selling our martingale collars and felted wool leashes. Folks loved the leashes (they're so soft!) and they were fascinated by the limited-slip feature of the martingale collars that is great for ANY dog whose head is smaller than their neck.
This is Sinbad, an energetic Bull Terrier, in his new martinale collar.
By the time the Expo closed yesterday, Ruby and Daniel had given up their job as booth greeters and they were sharing a dog bed, trying to get some rest. They deserved it, because being out in public like that is really tiring. I was tired, too, after talking almost nonstop for the entire afternoon ... and we were all more than ready to get ourselves out of there and go home.
Time is ticking toward our big annual Greyhounds Rock benefit weekend ... November 3 and 4, at the Fredericksburg Hospitality House and Conference Center. This is our seventh year, and it gets bigger and better every year, and requires more work and time on the part of our volunteers. It's worth it, though, because we know that what we do, and the money we raise to support the program at OSU, helps real live dogs ... like Daniel! (The vets at OSU consulted on Daniel's case and helped narrow down his confusing symptoms to get a definite diagnosis.)
For all the details and a schedule of activities for our event, click HERE to visit the Greyhounds Rock web site. We are thrilled to have two very special programs this year ... our Saturday night speaker is Fabien Cousteau (ocean explorer, environmentalist, and dog lover), and our Sunday brunch guests are Jim Nelson and Rene Agredano (founders of the Tripawds online community). It will be a great weekend, full of information, vendors, dogs, and FUN.