The New World

10 Feb 08 Sunday

The icy wind blows the cirrus clouds into delicate feathers as I stumble down the driveway to the car. Armed with a very large cup of coffee, I make the ten minute drive to the track. I am not a morning person… Henry has invited me over today even though the kennel helper week has not yet begun to meet the dogs and see his kennel. For this I would get up at 3:00 AM with a smile on my face if I had to. But it’s 8:00, and I remind myself that he’s already been hard at work for two hours after leaving the kennel for home at midnight once all the dogs were settled in after the evening racing.

As I have not been issued the proper identification badge yet, Henry meets me in the track parking lot and I follow his car past the security booth into the kennel compound. Rows of long white buildings border the roads, each numbered and housing two racing kennels. We come to a stop at his building and park; the green and yellow greyhound sign cut-out on the chainlink door says Ryan Racing. Walking past two very clean turnout pens and an enormous freezer, we go in. The kennel is immaculate- white walls brighten the two large rooms which are lined with banks of large crates and 68 greyhounds bark happily in greeting to Henry and This New Person. I check my pulse to see if I have actually died and gone to heaven. Reassuring myself that I still inhabit this planet, I walk across the clean poured cement floor to start visiting the dogs. There isn’t even a shred of bedding paper on the floor much less a scuff mark. One might think that there would be an odor present with this many dogs housed, but the only thing I can smell is the chicken cooking in the stew for the dogs that Henry started when he came in this morning.

I will not detail all we do today but suffice it to say we do everything from feeding to physical care to racing. Instead, I will wait to tell you more about many things once the Kennel Week starts. Today I got to spend a wonderful amount of time getting to know the dogs and had the very special chance to follow Henry around (um, make that sprint as that man is fast) and see racing life from a trainer’s perspective. Incredible AND exhausting! One brief vignette: one of his dogs won his B race, Henry was quietly pleased. However, one of his younger girls in a CJ race (the step at Raynham after Maiden) figured out how to navigate the traffic and passed several dogs at the far turn and into the stretch to finish far better than she had started. He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face- he was so pleased that she used her head and showed a lot of heart in doing this.

It’s now 4:00pm and we return to the kennel so that Henry can get the dogs ready who will be in schooling races later today. We take our leave in the road in front of the kennel and I drive home, turning the events of the day over in my mind. Now we must wait to hear from Gary Temple the Raynham assistant general manager and Linda Jensen about the dates for Kennel Week. It cannot come soon enough, methinks- I look forward to time with the dogs and Henry again and am so thankful for this experience thus far.

Tags: adoption, greyhounds