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AMBER'S HOME PAGE

Jack went to pick up our new dog from Mrs. Rosen. It had been a bit over two weeks since we'd turned in our adoption forms, and it's amazing how quickly you can forget that greyhounds just aren't built like other dogs. I wasn't prepared to see what looked like a very skinny, long nosed tiger! Greyhounds are extremely slender when compared to "regular" dogs, and this one had almost every rib and vertebra showing. She seemed rather tentative, and I can't say that I blamed her. In the course of a few days, she left the track in New England, been shipped to the Rosen's place in Maryland, and landed in our house. I'm sure she had no idea what was happening to her.

Brandy was at the groomer's when the new dog arrived. This gave us a chance to show the newcomer what the inside of a house looked like. The two biggest challenges were the stairs down to the basement and the skating rink we called the kitchen floor. We still weren't sure what we were going to call her--we just knew that "Dinky Dee" was not an option! (Click here if you'd like to see Amber's pedigree.)

We went out back to the fenced yard to give her a chance to unkink a bit. She had an incredibly self-possessed and regal bearing. At that point, my parents stopped by to meet her, and my mother asked what name we'd chosen. She felt that the dog should have a regal sounding name since she just "looked like royalty." We tried miscellaneous names out on her. When my mother suggested calling her "Amber," the dog went over to her and nosed her hand. Okay, Amber it was.

Jack retrieved Brandy from the groomer and we introduced the two dogs in front of the house. Amber just looked at Brandy and sniffed him. Brandy barked at her. And barked and barked! Quite a feisty thing to do to a dog twice his height and weight! Amber essentially ignored the alpha dog Brandy, who had no idea what to do with this canine in giraffe form. We had to raise Amber's food bowl to keep Brandy from hoovering down her food, too, and while she ate he would walk between her legs, hoping she'd drop something.

Over the next few weeks, Amber's personality unfolded. She was indeed the ultra-confident, gentle dog we needed to counter Brandy's severe separation anxiety. She was totally and completely unflappable. Amber was extremely affectionate, and she would absolutely demand attention. If your hand was at your side, she'd slide her head underneath it and bump your hand with her head until you'd start to rub her. She thought that everyone who came to the door had come for her benefit, and demanded her share (and more!) of attention.

Amber learned the house rules incredibly quickly, with a single sharp "NO!" being enough for her to never repeat the offense again. It was also enough to send her almost groveling to her bed--she was very sensitive, and she wanted so much to please us.

Amber also did something that was totally new to us. When she was excited and happy, she chattered. For years, we had no clue what this meant. It sounded like she was freezing to death, but that certainly couldn't be the case when she did it in the summertime! We'd come home and she'd be bouncing around doing her "I'm-so-happy-to-see-you dance," chattering away like she was using castanets. It was on Greyhound-L (a greyhound list server) that I first read about something greyhounds do called "nitting." Nitting is when the dog rapidly nibbles, using its front teeth, on someone. It appears to be an expression of affection, but depending on the body part being nitted :), it can be painful! It was during the discussion of nitting that I learned that Amber's chattering was called "air-nitting" and, as we suspected, it had nothing to do with her being cold. It was her way of telling us how glad she was we'd come home, or that we were playing with her, or were taking her somewhere.

Amber was an absolutely "bombproof" greyhound. Nothing startled her. Loud noises or sudden movements, even when she sound asleep, brought only opened eyes or raised ears as a reaction. She adored children, and would stand happily in the middle of a group of children at a GPA booth for hours on end. In the hopes of helping to find homes for more of her "cousins," we spent as much time as we had available doing GPA Meet & Greet booths with Amber. She obviously enjoyed being with other greyhounds, and she absolutely loved all the attention she got.

When Amber had been with us for three years, we reached the difficult conclusion that it was time to let Brandy cross the Rainbow Bridge. He was 16 years old. He had been our first "furchild," arriving when he was just eight weeks old. Now, he was virtually deaf, blind from cataracts, and had ever-increasing heart problems. It was time. Brandy crossed the Bridge from my husband's arms.

Amber looked for her fuzzy companion, but didn't really seem to mind being an only dog. The situation bothered me, though. It's horrible to part with a "furchild"--a part of your family. I don't know how I would have survived it if I hadn't had another dog there to hug and to cry on. We called Mrs. Rosen to start the wheels in motion to adopt another greyhound. We never even considered another breed--we'd definitely become a greyhound family. At that time, I hadn't heard the name yet, but we had a classic case of "Potato Chip Syndrome," where nothing but another greyhound would do. After all, you can't have just one greyhound!

Once Topaz arrived, Amber decided that between the two of them, she was definitely the boss. They each had their own food bowls but shared the water bowl. If Topaz was getting a drink and Amber decided that she wanted one (now!), she'd bark once and Topaz would leave the kitchen. Once Amber was finished, Topaz would resume her drink. We thought this was a bit amusing, but since Amber was, essentially, being a benevolent dictator, we didn't intervene.

As time went on, we noticed that Amber was having some difficulty with laying down. Most greyhounds just plop down on the floor when they lay down, but Amber would circle and circle, and circle some more. She'd then begin to lower her hind end ever so slowly to the floor. Since she was ten years old, we just assumed her problem to be that her hips had gotten arthritic. At a pre-teeth cleaning vet visit, we mentioned this problem to the vet. His gentle probing of her hips drew yipes of protest from the normally stoic Amber. He told us that he'd x-ray her hips while she was under to get her teeth cleaned and have some extractions done.

When Amber was in for her dental, the vet called and told me that the hip x-rays were perfectly clean (no real surprise there, greyhounds are not prone to hip displaysia), so he x-rayed her spine. That x-ray was also perfectly normal. Since something was obviously wrong, he drew blood to test for Lyme Disease and/or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. The smear came back positive for RMSF, and Amber was immediately placed on amoxicillin and glyco-flex. She took the glyco-flex the rest of her life--it really helped her joints move more freely.

Although Amber definitely responded to the antibiotics, she was never was the same dog she was prior to the RMSF. She didn't do Meet & Greets any more; it seemed to tire her out too much, so that was left to the younger dogs. I'm trying to find out all I can about RMSF, but there just doesn't seem to be much info out there. What I have found out, though, is that there are problems with tick-carried diseases in general. These can infect any breed of dog, by the way, so everyone should be aware of them. Unfortunately, in quite a few places the attitude is taken that "We don't have that problem around here," and dogs that could have been saved are not.

We lost our sweet Amber very suddenly on April 3rd, 1997. She was 12 years and 9 months old. Her muzzle was almost totally white, and white hairs were mixed in over the rest of her body, almost like frosting. After a bit of a romp in the yard on a beautiful spring day, she came inside and laid down in her bed to nap. While she slept, her heart peacefully stopped. I found her just a short time later.

We'll always remember Amber, Greyhound Ambassadog Extraordinaire, who, just by being her normal greyhound self, helped many more greyhounds find homes. We miss her terribly.

In memory of our wonderful girl, Amber
7/2/84 - 4/3/97