Molly and Ivy, our two Italian greyhounds. Cute, yet bad. Stackable. Cuddly. They like to bark and run and pull food off of the kitchen counter. They only look innocent. They have an interesting feature known as "surround hound". If you get under a cover, either on a bed or on the couch, then you will soon be surrounded by hounds (see above picture - the blanket was moved for artistic effect, usually they burrow under the blanket).
 

    Molly is brown. B’b’brown, b’b’bad. She is afraid of her own shadow and runs around behind the house to bark when Ivy is out front barking. If  the danger is more acute she will run to the top of the stairs and half way down the hall of the upstairs and bravely bark from there.. She is the softer of the two. Her primary skill is ... well ... being soft. She is playful, in a timid way. Sometimes she starts barking, forgets why but just can't bring herself to stop. And she squeals, is easily startled - which happens a lot - then she squeals. She likes pizza ... but it makes her barf. This fact does not stop her from trying to pull pizza boxes off of kitchen counters. Oh, she has inflammatory bowel disease and is on steroids. She is allergic to beef.

Her favorite came is "tug of war". She likes to lie on top of Ivy. Ivy does not care for this. Look into Ivy's eyes, can you see that she does not care for Molly? Molly on the other hand is sleepy.

   Ivy is older. More mature, she is less skittish than Molly. She is the better jumper and is able to clear the couch in a single bound. She enjoys licking the sofa , jumping on the UPS guy, barking and pulling pizza boxes off of the kitchen counter when no one is looking.

Her special skill is the ability to jump through the open window of a full size pick up from the ground and quickly find and eat any lunch in the truck. She also likes to chew on the shells of box turtles. So we must be vigilant in order to save the box turtles during warmer weather. Ivy has seizures. Aren't inbred dogs special. Though she will play "tug", Ivy is more partial to "fetch" when it comes to play time. And she is the faster of the two dogs.

    Our kids were watching a show on animal planet. It turns out that these dogs were bred to be bed warmers. This explains their innate desire to sleep in bed with you under the covers. In the winter we fight over these dogs, because they are warm to sleep with ... and Molly is soft too ... and on those cold winter nights when it's a two dog night? Well we are prepared, are you? Foot warmers, noisy foot warmers.

      Well we must be crazy 'cause now we've got three of them. Smokey was a "rescue hound". His owners took him to our vet to see if they would take him. Denied this they took him to the pound. A secretary at the vet called my wife to see if we could "find the dog a home".  My wife said yes, so the kind lady at the vet's went to the pound to retrieve "Smokey" (as named by my daughter). They kept him at the vet until my wife was able to swing by with my son after school.

     Here is Smokey in his favorite indoor dog house. He likes to go inside and scratch around. Sometimes this leads to the house tipping over. Strangely the older two dogs don't like this house, so it has become his personal space.

Now we have an official dog pack. When they are not running around or barking. They like to lounge around., sometimes with each other. Oh, they sleep a lot too.

Not having much in the way of body fat, they tend to "huddle" in the winter as can be seen above. The picture at the right shows the commonly seen "greyhound stacking" behavior. Notice that Ivy does not like it and better when Smokey lies on top of her then she does when Molly lies on top of her (notice the pained, resigned expression).

Needless to say, Smokey is a "boss" dog. And as a bonus, a free one. And cute. Why would some one want to get rid of such a fine pup? Our gain I guess.

Smokey follows Ivy around, hoping to learn from the master. When there is barking to be done outside, he joins Ivy to do it (while Molly seeks a safe place to bark inside the house). He plays tug of war with her over stuffed toys. He follows her everywhere, gleaning bits of dog wisdom.

He likes to play tug or war more then fetch, but will combine the two. He also enjoys chewing rawhides and ripping the stuffing out of stuffed toys.  But most of all, he enjoys chewing Kleenex. Dog or rat - you be the judge.

Ivy enjoys watching Smokey "prechew" a piece of rawhide. She waits. When the rawhide appears to be good and soft, she relieves him of it (much to his displeasure). It is indeed a dog eat dog world. Bark, bark, bark bark.

Smokey likes to spend time outside patrolling the yard and sniffing. In the spring and summer he hunts lizards (blue tailed skinks) and then barfs them up later - at his connivance. He also hunts birds (but is only rarely successful thank God - this bird hunting is not encouraged). He likes to chase squirrels and other small rodents. Though (unlike Ivy) he has yet to "bring down" a squirrel. 

A "low light" of last summer was my finding bits of fine white material on the rug - surrounded by bits of fine grey hair. Was there something wrong with Ivy? What was this fine, hard white material with sharp edges? Similar piles wee noted scattered through out the house on various rugs. What could it be? Finding the squirrel tail was a clue. Finding the hind quarter "cashed" in the dogs "crate" brought the whole event into focus. The horror, the horror. Its not like we don't keep food down. But as any true West Virginian knows, squirrels make good eating, though usually cooked and served with gravy.